BV  1535  .H4  1908 
Hervey,  Walter  L.  1862 
Picture-work 


licture=OTorb 


WALTER  L.  HERVLY,  Ph.D. 


New  York       Chicago      Toronto 

Fleming  H.  Revell  Company 

London  and  Edinburgh 


Copyright,  1896.  by 
W.   L.   Hervey 

Copyright,   igo8,   by 
Fleming  H.  Revell  Company 


CONTENTS. 

Page. 

I.   The  Problem  and  One  of  Its 

Solutions 5 

II.    Types  of  Picture-Work   .     .  9 

III.     A  PiCTURE-BoOK,   AND  HoW    TO 

Use  It        22 

IV.    Side-Lights 26 

V.    Stories  and  Story-Telling  31 

VI.    Some  First  Principles:  Unity, 

Reality,  Order     ....  44 

VII.    How  TO  Learn  How     ...  56 

VIII.    Books,  Pictures,    and   Illus- 
trative Material      ...  71 

IX.    False  Picture-Work    ...  82 

X.    A  Cooperative  Study       .     .  87 


pcture^Morf?. 


THE  PROBLEM   AND  ONE    OF  ITS   SOLUTIONS. 

A  FRIEND  of  the  writer,  who  has  since  at- 
tained to  the  dignity  of  a  teacher  of  teachers, 
relates  to  the  honor  of  his  wise  mother  that 
when  he  was  a  boy  she  did  not  make  him 
promise  not  to  smoke  or  chew  or  play  cards 
— probably  compassing  these  ends  in  other 
ways — but  she  did  exert  her  influence  to  lead 
him  not  to  read  Sunday-school  books.  For 
this  warning,  he  says,  he  has  never  ceased  to 
be  thankful.  In  these  days  of  supervising 
committees  and  selected  lists,  when  standard 
literature,  undiluted,  has  found  its  way  into 
the  Sunday-school  library,  such  a  course 
would  not  be  warranted.  But  there  are  still 
thoughtful  persons  who  do  not  feel  that  in  the 
matter  of  Sunday-schools  they  are  out  of  the 
woods  yet. 

"Do  you  know  anything  about  Sunday- 
schools  ? ' '  was  asked  of  one  of  these,  a  rep- 
resentative woman. 

5 


6  Picture-  Work. 

"I'm  sorry  to  say  that  I  do,"  was  the 
reply. 

And  there  are  other  signs  that  the  number 
is  increasing  of  those  who  beheve  that  in  the 
choice  of  a  Sunday-school  the  greatest  care 
must  be  exercised.  Some  there  are,  who,  it 
may  be  through  over-conscientiousness,  are 
fain  to  give  up  the  search  in  despair,  prefer- 
ring to  teach  their  children  at  home. 

There  is  probably  no  other  Sunday-school 
that,  in  point  of  order,  quiet  seclusion  of  classes, 
professional  preparation  of  (paid)  teachers, 
can  compare  with  the  "  Religious  School"  of 
Temple  Emanuel  in  New  York  City.  But 
there  is  no  intrinsic  reason  why  the  mechani- 
cal and  pedagogical  difficulties  might  not  one 
day  be  as  successfully  removed  everywhere  as 
in  this  model  school  ;  and  why  they  may  not 
be  removed  in  every  grade.  In  the  infant 
classes,  through  the  beneficent  influence  of 
the  kindergarten,  there  are  already  signs  of 
promise.  In  the  senior  departments  the 
problem  is  less  complicated.  But  in  the 
classes  where  is  found  "the  restless,  wide- 
awake, active,  intense,  ingenious,  irrepressible 
boy,"  or  "the  girl  who  is  just  beyond  girl- 
hood and  yet  can  scarcely  be  regarded  as  a 
woman, ' '    and  her  awkward,    self-conscious, 


A  Solution  of  the  Problem.  7 

misunder^.tood  brother — here  the  problem  re- 
mains, and  no  one  denies  that  it  is  a  hard 
one.  Who  cannot  at  this  moment  see  with 
his  mind's  eye  a  picture  of  such  a  class — on 
the  one  side  a  vision  of  inattention,  insub- 
ordination, irreverence,  on  the  other,  in- 
competence, blindly,  consecratedly,  painfully 
doing  his — or  her — best  ? 

In  all  things  relating  to  the  common  schools 
there  is  a  quickening  of  popular  interest  and 
of  professional  spirit.  The  time  is  at  hand 
when  none  but  trained  experts  will  be  allowed 
to  teach.  Is  the  instruction  and  guidance  of 
young  minds  in  matters  pertaining  to  the 
Heavenly  Father  and  the  things  of  the  unseen 
world  a  task  less  difficult,  delicate,  important, 
than  the  teaching  of  arithmetic  and  geog- 
raphy? The  question  answers  itself  It 
follows  that  the  religious  and  moral  instruc- 
tion of  our  cliildren  will  one  day  be  put  on  a 
firmer  and  more  scientific  basis. 

In  this  reform  there  are  three  steps  :  the 
securing  of  proper  external  conditions  for 
thought  and  feeling — in  blunter  words,  the 
banishment  of  hubbub  ;  the  systematic  train- 
ing of  the  teacher  ;  the  enrichment  of  the 
lesson  by  giving  to  it  reality,  meaning,  and 
life.     The  last  of  these  ends  is  the  only  one 


8  Picture-  Work. 

here  under  consideration.  To  this  end  there 
are  doubtless  several  ways.  *  *  Picture-work ' ' 
is  one  of  these,  and,  it  is  believed,  one  of 
high  importance.  That  it  is  neglected  is 
beyond  question.  To  point  out  its  value  and 
set  forth  its  method  are  the  aims  of  this  little 
book. 


n. 

TYPES  OF  PICTURE-WORK. 

In  the  Dresden  Gallery,  the  writer  once 
saw  two  children,  brother  and  sister,  one  ten 
and  the  other  twelve,  looking  at  the  Sistlne 
Madonna.  They  entered  the  room,  and  with- 
out heeding  the  crowd  there  gathered,  almost 
instantly  fixed  their  gaze  upon  the  picture. 
For  many  minutes  they  seemed  to  be  under 
a  spell.  They  were  drinking  in  something. 
The  great  picture  was  speaking  to  them — to 
their  very  souls.  And  they  understood  some- 
thing of  its  message.  At  all  events  they  felt 
its  influence — which  is  much  better  than 
merely  to  understand. 

More  striking,  because  more  unexpected, 
was  the  influence  of  a  large  copy  of  the  same 
picture  upon  a  little  boy  not  two  years  and  a 
half  old.  Although  this  child  was  passion- 
ately fond  of  pictures,  no  other  picture  ever 
seemed  to  appeal  to  him  as  this  one  did.  As 
soon  as  it  was  brought  into  the  house  he  in- 
stantly began  to  examine  it,  and  pass  judg- 


lo  Picture-  Work. 

ment  upon  it.  He  at  once  found  the  center 
of  interest,  the  young  child  and  his  mother, 
then  pointed  to  the  angels,  the  ' '  grandfather," 
and  lasriy  to  the  "lady,"  but  returned  al- 
ways to  the  "  dear  little  baby  Jesus."  From 
this  time  the  story  of  the  birth  of  Jesus  was 
the  one  story  most  loved  by  the  child.  And 
a  collection  of  thirty  or  more  madonnas 
("mother-pictures,"  the  child  cahed  them) 
by  other  great  masters  was  a  never-failing 
source  of  delight  to  him. 

Even  very  young  children  appreciate  the 
best  pictures  and  the  best  stories.  In  fact 
the  younger  they  are  the  better  sometimes 
seems  to  be  their  taste.  Are  we  doing  all 
that  we  may  to  gratify,  and  at  the  same  time 
to  form,  this  taste  ? 

But  our  term,  "picture-work,"  includes 
more  than  pictures  painted  with  the  brush. 
Literature  is  full  of  pictures  no  less  beautiful 
in  theme  and  in  execution,  and  even  more 
important  in  meaning,  than  Raphael's  master- 
piece. The  story  of  the  good  bishop,  Mon- 
seigneur  Bienvenu,  as  it  is  told  for  us  in  "  Les 
Miserables, "  is  a  picture,  and  so  are  all  such 
stories.  Literature  is  full  of  them.  The 
Bible  is  a  treasure-house  of  masterpieces. 
More  wonderful,  too,  are  these  story  pictures, 


Types  of  Picture-  Work.  1 1 

^ust  as  they  are,  if  told  so  that  they  can 
be  seen  and  felt,  than  they  could  ever  be 
made  with  brush  or  pencil. 

How  may  vve  gain  the  power  to  paint  these 
pictures,  helping  when  help  is  needed^  stand- 
ing aside  when  our  bungling  efforts  would 
only  destroy  the  interest  and  the  charm — - 
rub  off,  as  it  were,  the  delicate  bloom  ? 

To  give  help  in  finding  the  answer  to  these 
questions  is  the  object  of  the  chapters  that 
follow.  Meanwhile  we  return  to  our  present 
theme.     What  is  picture-work  ? 

There  is  the  main  story  and  the  telling  of 
it—a  work  of  art  as  we  shall  see — and  there 
are  also  the  side-lights,  without  which  no 
story-teller  can  capture  and  hold  his  audience. 

The  story  to  be  told,  let  us  say,  is  the  heal- 
ing of  the  paralytic.  But  before  the  story 
begins,  the  ground  must  be  cleared.  The 
oriental  ho/jse  and  bed  must  be  pictured. 
Get  a  real  specimen  of  each,  if  you  can,  of 
course.*  Provide  yourself  with  pictures  in 
any  case,  but  first  of  all,  make  an  eastern 
house  and  bed  yourself  A  square  paper 
box — a  hat  box  will  do — with  a  hole  cut  in 
the  top,  ready  to  be  torn  up  when  the  time 
comes  ;    a  stairway  made  of  paper,  leading 

*  See  Chapter  VIII.,  last  heading. 


12  Picture-  Work. 

up  the  outside  of  the  house  to  the  roof ;  a 
small  piece  of  felt — an  old  bed-quilt  will 
serve  equally  well — with  strings  tied  in  each 
end,  for  the  bed,  to  show  how  a  bed  could  be 
let  down,  rolled,  and  * '  taken  up "  ;  with 
these  accessories  the  teacher  is  ready  to  begin 
the  work  of  sketching  the  real  picture,  the 
story  of  the  miracle. 

Not  merely  for  children,  but  for  grown 
folk  too  is  this  kind  of  picture-work  a  means 
of  teaching.  In  a  densely  populated  quarter 
of  New  York  City  there  is  to-day  a  minister 
who  is  not  content  with  mere  word-pictures. 
He  brings  into  the  pulpit  the  objects  them- 
selves— it  may  be  a  candle,  a  plumb  line,  a 
live  frog,  an  air  pump.  With  him  the  method 
is  a  success,  as  it  has  been  with  others.  Does 
this  seem  crude?  So  are  the  mental  proc- 
esses of  every  forty-nine  out  of  fifty  the 
world  over. 

Dr.  Parkhurst  in  the  second  of  those 
memorable  sermons  with  which  he  opened 
the  public  campaign  ag^ainst  Tammany,  car- 
ried into  the  pulpit  and  showed  his  congre- 
gation the  very  bundle  of  indictments  with 
which  he  was  to  strike  the  first  blow  for  civic 
purity. 

Ezekiel   went   still   further,   and   not  only 


Types  of  Picture-  Work.  13 

used  objects  but  actions  to  enforce  and  illus- 
trate his  terrible  sermon  : 

"  To  the  amazement  of  the  people,  setting 
them  all  awondering  what  he  could  mean,  he 
appears  one  day  before  them  with  fire,  a  pair 
of  scales,  a  knife,  and  a  barber's  razor.  These 
were  the  heads,  and  doom  was  the  burden  of 
his  sermon.  Sweeping  off,  what  an  easterner 
considers  it  a  shame  to  lose,  his  beard,  and 
the  hair  also  from  his  head,  this  bald  and 
beardless  man  divides  them  into  three  parts  ; 
weighing  them  in  the  balance.  One  third  he 
burns  in  the  fire  ;  one  third  he  smites  with 
the  knife  ;  and  the  remaining  third  he  tosses 
in  the  air,  scattering  it  on  the  winds  of 
heaven."  Thus  the  prophet  under  divine 
direction  foretells  the  disgrace,  division,  de- 
struction, dispersion  of  his  people. 

Not  less  striking  is  the  story  of  Jeremiah's 
dramatic  sermon  as  graphically  told  by  Dr. 
Guthrie,  from  whom  the  preceding  account 
has  been  quoted  : 

"The  preacher  appears — nor  book,  nor 
speech  in  hand,  but  an  earthen  vessel.  He 
addresses  his  hearers.  Pointing  across  the 
valley  to  Jerusalem,  with  busy  thousands  in 
its  streets,  its  massive  towers  and  noble 
temple    glorious    and    beautiful    beneath    a 


14  Picture-  Work. 

southern  sky,  he  says,  speaking  as  an  ambas- 
sador of  God,  '  I  will  make  this  city  desolate 
and  an  hissing '  .  .  .  pauses — raises  his 
arm — holds  up  the  potter's  vessel,  dashes  it 
on  the  ground  ;  and  planting  his  foot  on  its 
shivered  fragments,  he  adds,  '  Thus  saith  the 
Lord  of  Hosts,  even  so  will  I  break  this 
people,  and  this  city  as  one  breaketh  a  pot- 
ter's vessel.'  " 

It  may  have  been  the  inspiration  of  such 
examples  as  these  that  moved  Beecher  when, 
in  the  stirring  days  before  the  war  upon  the 
platform  of  Plymouth  Church,  after  taking 
up  one  argument  after  another  against  aboli- 
tion and  answering  it,  he  carried  each  one  to 
the  side  of  the  platform  and  threw  it  over 
into  the  pile  with  its  predecessors,  saying, 
' '  That  disposes  of  you. ' '  And  in  his  famous 
Liverpool  address,  did  he  not,  when  speaking 
of  the  freeing  of  the  slaves,  throw  down  and 
trample  upon  actual  chains  ? 

At  the  heart  of  even  the  boldest  of  such 
instances  of  picture-work,  there  lies  a  true 
and  universal  principle.  And  we  may  be 
sure  that  we  are  more  likely  to  err  on  the 
side  of  stiffness  and  conventionality  (which 
is  often  sheer  laziness  and  ignorance),  than 
on  the  side  of  reality  and  life. 


Types  of  Picture-  Work.  15 

The  unaided  imagination — the  power  of 
the  eyes  to  "  see  pictures  while  they're  shut" 
— will,  however,  often  serve  us  more  safely, 
and  not  less  surely.  That  was  a  vivid  and 
memorable  action-picture,  drawn  for  us  by 
Bishop  Vincent,  at  a  vesper  service  at  the 
close  of  a  Chautauqua  Sabbath,  in  the  "  Hall 
in  the  Grove. "  "  What  if  the  Master  him- 
self were  again  on  the  earth  at  this  hour, 
here  at  Chautauqua,  and  should  come  up  the 
hill,  through  the  trees  yonder,  and  should 
stand  between  these  pillars  and  speak  to  us 
now.  .  .  .  "  The  picture  was  complete 
and  irresistible.  We  all  saw  and  realized  all 
that  we  needed  to  see  and  feel,  in  order  to 
receive  the  lesson  that  followed. 

But  the  imagination  must  be  strengthened 
and  fed  by  plenty  of  sense  material.  It  can 
be  trusted  to  respond  with  its  pictures,  pro- 
vided it  has  been  given  material  enough  and 
provided  these  materials  are  skilfully  brought 
to  mind.  In  the  following  extract  from  the 
wonderful  "Story  of  Jesus, "^  which  should 
be  in  the  hands  of  every  parent  and  teacher, 
we  find  a  type  of  picture-work  which  illus- 
trates this  point,  for  it  quickens  and  makes 
many  calls  upon  the  imagination  :     "Imagine 

♦See  Chapter  VIII. 


1 6  Picture-  Work. 

traveling  through  a  state  no  larger  than 
Vermont,  and  finding  not  only  apples  and 
pears,  quinces  and  plums,  waving  corn- 
fields, maples  and  cedars,  but  orange-trees 
fragrant  with  snowy  blossoms,  and  heavy 
with  golden  fruit  in  January  ;  figs  and  dates, 
pomegranates  and  bananas — all  within  a 
day's  journey  !  The  fields  over  which  you 
pass  glow  like  gorgeous  Persian  carpets.  .  . " 
This  is  a  part  of  the  author's  picture  of 
Palestine. 

And  here  is  a  bit  of  Archdeacon  Farrar's 
graphic  word-picture  of  Nazareth,  where 
Jesus  spent  nearly  thirty  years  of  his  life  on 
the  earth  : 

"Gradually  the  valley  opens  into  a  little,  natural- 
looking  amphitheater  of  hills,  supposed  by  some 
to  be  the  crater  of  an  extinct  volcano  ;  and  then, 
clinging  to  hollows  of  a  hill,  which  rises  to  the 
height  of  some  five  hundred  feet  above  it,  lie,  like 
*a  handful  of  pearls  in  a  goblet  of  emerald,'  the 
flat  roofs  and  narrow  streets  of  a  little  eastern 
town.  There  is  ...  a  clear,  abundant  fountain, 
houses  built  of  white  stone,  and  gardens  scattered 
among  them,  umbrageous  with  figs  and  olives,  and 
rich  with  the  white  and  scarlet  blossoms  of  orange 
and  pomegranates.  In  spring,  at  least,  every- 
thing about  the  place  looks  indescribably  bright 
and  soft ;  doves  murmur  in  the  trees  ;  the  hoopoe 
flits  about  in  ceaseless  activity ;  the  bright  blue 


Types  of  Picture-  Work.  17 

roller-bird,  the  commonest  and  loveliest  bird  in 
Palestine,  flashes  like  a  living  sapphire  over  fields 
which  are  enameled  with  innumerable  flowers." 

Who  having  once  read,  seen,  and  felt  this 
picture  can  ever  forget  it  or  fail  to  feel  the 
atmosphere  of  this  place?  It  is  thus  we 
come  to  realize  that  Jesus  Christ  was  really 
once  a  boy,  a  young  man,  a  human  being, 
on  the  earth.  Even  here,  however,  all 
possible  helps  in  the  form  of  pictures,  maps, 
etc. ,  must  be  called  in  as  aids  to  the  pictur- 
ing power  of  the  mind. 

The  number  of  ' '  likes  ' '  in  the  two  fore- 
going selections  (there  are  at  least  eight  of 
them  expressed  or  implied)  suggests  the 
remark  of  a  humble  woman  regarding  the 
parables,  ' '  I  like  best  the  likes  of  Scripture. " 
This  word  lies  at  the  root  of  all  picture- 
work.  Whether  in  the  parables  of  Jesus, 
who  was  the  prince  of  teachers,  or  in  the 
discourses  of  great  preachers  whose  sermons 
teem  with  "likes,"  or  in  the  story-teller's 
skilful  comparison  of  place  with  place, 
people  with  people — Palestine  with  Vermont 
as  to  size,  with  England,  Scotland,  and 
Wales  as  to  its  divisions — Galilee,  Samaria, 
and  Judaea  being  ' '  united  because  they  had 
one  government,  one  ruler ;  separate  because 


1 8  Picture-  Work. 

of  their  peculiar  characteristics,  their  definite 
boundaries,  and  jealous  claims  to  special 
privileges" — in  all  the  notion  of  likeness  Is 
the  central  point  of  the  thought. 

We  never  can  know  anything  without 
having  something  to  know  it  with.  A  ' '  like ' ' 
Is  the  key  that  enables  us  to  unlock  and  to 
enter  the  door  of  the  unknown. 

It  is  through  picture-work  also — to  go  a 
step  further — that  we  come  to  have  revealed 
to  us  our  own  characters.  This  type  of 
picture-work  Is  at  once  the  most  difficult 
and  the  most  important  of  all.  An  example 
of  such  picture-making  is  chosen  from  an 
account  written  by  Miss  Wiltse,  setting  forth 
her  method  of  making  stories  In  order  to 
suit  the  needs  of  specific  cases  among  her 
pupils.  Not  every  one  has  the  love  or  the 
genius  of  Miss  Wiltse,  and  no  one  can  hope 
to  win  such  success  as  hers  at  once  ;  but  it 
may  be  that  by  catching  some  of  her  spirit, 
studying  her  plan,  and  patiently  practicing, 
we  may  learn  this  royal  way  of  reaching  the 
hearts  of  our  children. 

"There  was  in  my  kindergarten,"  she 
writes,  ' '  a  little  boy  whose  deceit  and  cruelty 
were  quite  abnormal  ;  he  would  smile  In  my 
face  with  seraphic  sweetness  while  his  heavy 


Types  of  Picture-  Work,  19 

shoe  would  be  crushing  his  neighbor's  toes. 
He  seemed  incorrigible.  At  last  I 
wrote  a  story  entitled  'The  Fairy  True 
Child, '  into  which  I  put  my  strongest  effort 
to  reach  this  untruthful  child.  I  told  it  to 
the  class,  and  before  it  was  concluded  this 
boy's  head  was  low  upon  his  breast,  his 
cheeks  aflame  with  conscious  guilt.  No 
direct  reference  was  made  to  him  ;  no  other 
child  thought  of  him  in  connection  with  the 
story.  The  next  day  he  asked  to  have  it 
repeated,  and  his  conduct  was  noticeably 
better ;  the  story  became  his  moral  tonic, 
and  one  glad  day  he  threw  his  arms  about 
me,  saying  he  wanted  to  keep  his  Fairy  True 
Child  always. 

*  *  Another  child  who  was  feeble-minded 
was  helped  to  be  free  from  his  mental  inertia 
and  day-dreaming  by  a  story  written  ex- 
pressly for  him,  in  which  '  I  am  that  which 
WILLS '  was  pictured  as  a  fairy,  coming  softly 
to  the  little  boy  whose  power  to  try  was  lost, 
kissing  his  eyes,  breathing  softly  upon  his 
lips,  putting  her  finger  softly  upon  his  ears — 
making  each  more  ready  and  attentive — and 
finally  enthroning  the  little  boy's  own  fairy 
in  its  place  in  his  brain,  where  the  fairy 
grows  more  and  more  princely,  and  the  little 


20  Picture-  Work. 

boy  more  and  more  manly,  trying  hard,  so 
very  hard,  to  keep  the  dear  little  fairy  on  his 
throne." 

Here,  then,  we  have  some  of  the  types  of 
picture-work  :  the  picture  and  the  story,  the 
parable  in  its  various  forms,  and  the  word- 
picture — whether  of  things  or  actions  ;  illus- 
trations or  side-lights,  the  ' '  likes  ' '  with 
which  a  skilful  teacher  illumines  his  teaching, 
and  the  objects,  models,  maps,  and  sketches 
on  pad  or  blackboard,  with  which  he  re- 
enforces  the  lagging  imaginations  of  his 
hearers. 

What,  then,  is  a  picture  ?  A  picture  is 
anything  that  helps  us  to  see  more  clearly, 
feel  more  heartily,  and  act  upon  more  faith- 
fully the  truth  which  is  not  or  cannot  be 
immediately  present  to  our  senses.  ,The 
truth  to  be  pictured  may  be  the  truth  of 
people,  places,  and  actions — external  things  ; 
it  may  be  the  truth  of  character  and  of  inner 
life — the  things  that  are  unseen,  which  we 
could  never  see  at  all  except  by  the  aid  of 
real  things  or  pictures  of  real  things  ;  just 
as,  for  example,  our  idea  of  God  is  built  out 
of  our  experience  of  mountains,  flowers, 
thunder-storms,  our  mother's  tenderness,  and 
our  father's  strength.     These  pictures  may 


Types  of  Picture-  Work.  21 

be  drawn  or  painted  ;  they  may  be  expressed 
in  words  or  in  deeds,  with  pen  or  brush, 
with  actions,  with  things. 

Where  to  find  our  materials  and  how  to 
use  these  tools  with  economy  and  effective- 
ness are  the  questions  that  next  claim  our 
attention. 


III. 

A   PICTURE-BOOK,    AND    HOW    TO   USE   IT. 

The  Bible  is  a  picture-book.  It  is  history, 
literature,  logic,  philosophy  ;  but,  more  than 
all  these,  for  children  and  all  who  have  the 
heart  of  childhood,  it  is  a  store-house  of 
pictures. 

The  first  thing  needful  for  a  teacher,  if  he 
would  touch  his  pupils,  is  to  see  these  pic- 
tures himself  This,  we  must  admit,  is  sel- 
dom done.  For  it  is  one  of  the  sad  things 
about  the  human  mind  that  it  possesses  the 
power  to  read  the  words  that  set  the  picture 
forth  without  seeing  the  picture,  and  without 
being  touched  by  the  emotion  which  only  the 
picture  can  arouse.  We  can  seem  to  pray 
the  Lord's  Prayer,  for  example,  while  in  real- 
ity we  are  merely  making  articulate — some- 
times inarticulate — sounds. 

' '  I  believe  it  would  startle  and  move  any 
one,"  said  Robert  Louis  Stevenson,  referring 
to  the  gospel  of  St.  Matthew,  "  if  he  could 
make  a  certain  effort  of  imagination  and  read 


A  Pidure-Book.  23 

it  freshly  like  a  book,  not  droningly  and 
dully  like  a  portion  of  the  Bible. ' ' 

Who  of  us  has  not  been  thus  startled  and 
moved?  It  may  have  been  on  hearing  a 
story  read  by  one  who  read  as  though  he  had 
seen  the  men  and  the  events  face  to  face. 
It  may  have  been  by  being  helped  to  realize 
and  see  by  pictures  or  by  being  ourselves  on 
the  ground  made  sacred  by  the  story,  or, 
perchance,  by  being  in  the  same  case  as  those 
described.  It  may  have  been  on  reading 
the  old  stories  ' '  freshly,  like  a  book, ' '  per- 
haps after  many  years,  when  the  old-time 
droning  and  the  dulness  are  forgotten,  and 
the  simple  beauty  and  power  of  the  old 
stories  come  home  to  us.  At  such  times  we 
say,  This  is  the  very  Word  of  God.  Were 
ever  pictures  painted  like  these  ? 

Thomas  Hardy  says  of  one  of  his  charac- 
ters that,  like  every  healthy  youth,  he  had  an 
aversion  to  the  reading  of  the  Bible.  Some 
of  us  know  what  that  means,  though  we  did 
not  know  it  was  healthy.  Better,  we  might 
almost  say,  that  the  child  spent  his  time  in 
some  other  way  than  to  read  the  Bible  or  be 
taught  it,  only  to  conceive  a  dislike  for  its 
stories.  Better  a  child  never  went  to  Sunday- 
school  than  that  he  should  go  to  have  interest 


24  Picture-  Work. 

deadened.  He  may  wait  many  a  year  before 
the  freshness  returns. 

"Two  grand  qualifications  are  equally 
necessary  in  the  education  of  children," 
said  Horace  Mann,  "love  and  knowledge." 
The  teacher  of  the  Bible  must  indeed  know — 
not  know  about,  merely,  but  be  personally 
acquainted  with  —  the  old  patriarchs,  their 
dress,  occupation,  country,  way  of  life,  and 
character  ;  the  judges,  likewise,  the  prophets 
and  kings,  the  children  of  Israel  as  a  people, 
the  apostles  and  their  friends,  and,  above  all, 
Christ  himself  Does  it  make  little  difference 
whether  we  think  of  Christ  as  an  oriental  or 
as  an  Italian  ;  whether  as  clad  in  the  turban 
and  flowing  white  robes  of  the  East  or  in 
more  conventionalized  attire  ;  whether  as  he 
is  pictured  for  us  in  the  vivid  and  startling 
colors  of  the  artist  Tissot,  or  in  the  cold  con- 
ventional steel  of  our  grandmother's  best 
parlor  ;  or  the  base  wood-cuts  of  some  mod- 
ern lesson  leaves  ? 

To  us  as  well  as  to  our  Lord  himself  it 
makes  a  vital  difference  whether  his  youth 
was  spent  amid  arid  wastes — as  many  of  us 
picture  Palestine — or  in  the  peaceful  beauty 
of  such  a  retreat  as  that  described  for  us  io 
Archdeacon  Farrar's  picture. 


A  Picture- Book.  25 

We  must  indeed  have  knowledge,  as  full,  as 
exact,  as  personal  as  it  can  be  made  for  us  or 
as  we  can  make  it  for  ourselves.  And  from 
this  will  come  love.  The  more  full,  exact, 
and  personal  our  vision,  the  more  deep-seated 
will  be  our  love.  We  should  therefore  seek 
our  knowledge  at  first  hand.  We  should 
look  upon  * '  helps  ' '  as  we  regard  crutches — 
good  until  we  can  walk  alone  ;  bad  the  in- 
stant they  keep  us  from  using  our  own 
powers,  seeing  with  our  own  eyes. 

In  picture-work,  as  in  everything  else,  love 
is  the  principal  thing.  A  teacher  of  little 
children,  whose  privilege  it  is  to  help  them  to 
enter  into  loving  appreciation  of  buds  and 
leaves,  soil  and  roots,  winter  and  how  every- 
thing prepares  for  it,  spring  and  how  it  wakes 
everything  to  new  life,  must  herself  love 
nature.  No  "science"  falsely  so  called  will 
suffice.  ' '  Do  you  really  love  7iature  .^  "  as 
President  G.  Stanley  Hall  has  said  with  an 
indescribable  emphasis  on  every  word,  is  the 
question  of  questions  to  ask  such  a  teacher. 
'' Do  you  really  love  the  pictures  of  the  Bi- 
ble? ' '  is  likewise  the  question  of  questions  for 
the  parent  and  teacher  whose  high  privilege 
it  is  to  lead  children  from  the  first  of  their  ac- 
quaintance to  love  the  great  Picture-Book. 


IV. 

SIDE-LIGHTS. 

"  Can  you  apply  a  parable  ?"  says  one  of 
Robert  Louis  Stevenson's  characters.  "  It  is 
not  the  same  thing  as  a  reason,  but  usually 
vastly  more  convincing." 

The  spiritual  truth  which  we  would  have 
enter  the  child's  mind — how  is  it  to  gain 
admittance  ?  Not  by  a  surgical  operation  ; 
much  less  by  the  use  of  a  foreign  language 
or — what  is  quite  the  same  thing — of  abstract 
language.  Not  by  any  direct  means,  but 
indirectly,  by  objects,  scaffolding,  types,  the 
story,  and  the  illustration. 

* '  Every  natural  fact  is  a  symbol  of  some 
spiritual  fact,  and  no  spiritual  fact  can  be 
understood  except  by  first  knowing  the 
natural  fact,  which  is,  as  it  were,  its  double." 
It  is  so  with  the  child,  it  is  no  less  true  of 
grown  folk.  If  it  were  not  for  the  world  of 
nature — of  boundless  horizon,  ceaselessly 
flowing  rivers,  of  deaths  and  resurrections, 
of  parasites — we  should  be  powerless  to  grasp 
26 


Side- Lights.  27 

the  truths  of  the  world  of  spirit.  The  circle 
in  the  water,  for  example,  the  apples  on  the 
plate,  one  specked,  then  all  rotten,  these  all 
are  but  letters  of  the  alphabet  by  which  we 
spell  out  Influence. 

There  must  first  be  in  the  thing-world — to 
give  one  more  example — the  "rolling-stone," 
"the  last  straw,"  "the  bird  in  the  hand," 
' '  the  leaven, ' '  the  ore,  worth  seventy-five 
cents  as  ore,  worth  four  dollars  as  bar-iron, 
worth  $400,000  when  worked  up  into  hair- 
spring, before  we  can  understand,  or  ex- 
plain, or  talk  about  the  corresponding  things 
in  the  realm  of  the  unseen.  Which  is  only 
another  way  of  saying  that  he  whose  mind  is 
not  filled  with  the  truths  of  nature  is  but  ill 
furnished  for  understanding  the  truth  of  God. 

How  may  we  gain  this  power  to  enrich 
our  teaching  with  side-lights? 

I .  By  studying  the  great  masters  of  the 
art  of  illustration.  Beecher,  Spurgeon,  Dr. 
Parkhurst,  are  all  worthy  of  emulation. 
Beecher  testifies  that  in  his  early  preaching 
the  power  to  illustrate  was  only  latent.  He 
found  that  he  was  not  reaching  his  hearers 
and  he  began  to  search  for  "likes."  He 
went  about  his  farm,  upon  the  streets,  among 
mechanics,    in    fact    everywhere,    with    the 


28  Picture-  Work. 

thought  of  the  next  Sunday's  sermon  in  his 
mind,  saying,  ' '  What  is  this  Hke  ?  what  will 
that  illustrate  ?  "  A  glance  at  his  sermons 
shows  them  full  of  side-lights  from  business, 
life  at  sea,  from  the  farm  and  the  home,  from 
mechanical  processes,  as  the  cutting  and 
polishing  of  precious  stones,  and  very  often 
from  nature. 

In  a  recent  sermon  Dr.  Parkhurst  illus- 
trated his  single  point  from  botany,  physics, 
physiology,  a  ship,  and  from  the  actual  ex- 
perience of  two  men  engaged  in  a  life-and- 
death  struggle  with  the  same  appetite. 

But  the  power  of  these  great  preachers  is 
only  the  reflex  of  the  method  of  Christ  him- 
self. No  man  had  greater  power  in  picture- 
work.  In  range,  fertility,  aptness,  and  re- 
sult, the  word-pictures  of  Jesus  stand  alone 
in  the  history  of  teaching,  just  as  in  respect 
of  beauty  and  power  they  stand  alone  in 
literature. 

2.  The  power  of  picturesque  speech  is 
acquired  through  earnestness  and  love  of 
truth,  as  well  as  through  rich  experience  of 
nature  and  of  common  life.  This  is  hinted 
at  by  Emerson :  '  *  A  man' s  power  to  think 
and  to  speak  depends  on  the  simplicity  of 
his  character,  that  is,  upon  his  love  of  truth. 


Side-Lights.  29 

.  .  .  Picturesque  language  means  that 
he  who  employs  it  is  a  man  in  alliance 
with  truth  and  God.  A  man  conversing 
in  earnest,  if  he  watch  his  intellectual  proc- 
esses, will  find  that  a  picture  arises  in  his 
mind,  contemporaneous  with  every  thought, 
which  furnishes  the  vestment  of  the  thought. 
Hence  good  writings  and  brilliant  discourse 
are  perpetual  allegories.  This  imagery  is 
spontaneous,  provided  one  have  lived  suffi- 
ciently to  fill  his  mind  with  the  raw  materials 
of  such  pictures.  One  bred  in  the  woods 
shall  not  lose  his  lesson  in  the  roar  of  cities. 
.  .  .  At  the  call  of  a  noble  sentiment, 
again  the  woods  wave,  the  pines  murmur,  the 
river  rolls  and  shines,  and  the  cattle  low 
upon  the  mountains,  as  he  saw  and  heard 
them  in  his  infancy.  And  with  these  forms, 
the  spells  of  persuasion,  the  keys  of  power 
are  put  into  his  hands. ' '  And  as  it  is  with 
contact  with  nature,  so  it  is  with  first  hand 
experience  of  life  in  any  form. 

3.  Practice.  The  effects  of  practice  have 
already  been  cited  in  the  case  of  Beecher. 
It  is  one  of  the  mournful  facts  of  human  life 
that  so  many  powers  that  might  have  been 
brought  out  by  practice  always  remain  in  the 
latent  state.     Practice  story-telling,  practice 


30  Picture-  Work. 

finding  * '  likes, ' '  and  you  will  find  before 
long  that  there  is  growing  up  in  you  a  new 
power,  just  as  if  you  were  to  discover  in  your 
organism  a  stop,  by  pulling  which  you  could 
jump  ten  feet  in  the  air.  ' '  Practice  is  nine 
tenths.  A  course  of  mobs  is  good  practice 
for  orators.  All  the  great  speakers  were  bad 
speakers  at  first. ' '  And  a  course  of  nephews 
and  nieces  is  the  best  of  practice  for  story- 
tellers, and  for  those  who  would  be  adepts  in 
the  use  of  side-lights. 

A  word  of  caution.  Great  care  must  be 
used  not  to  make  the  stories  and  illustrations 
more  prominent  than  the  truth  we  wish  to 
illustrate.  Dr.  William  M.  Taylor  tells  of  a 
conversation  with  a  carpenter  in  which  he 
advised  him  to  use  certain  decorations. 
' '  That, ' '  said  the  carpenter,  ' '  would  violate 
the  first  rule  of  architecture.  We  must  never 
construct  ornament  but  only  ornament  con- 
struction." So  it  is  in  story-telling.  Never 
tell  a  story  for  its  own  sake,  merely,  but  for 
the  sake  of  the  truth  that  lies  embedded  in  it. 
A  story  or  an  illustration  must  grow  as  nat- 
urally out  of  the  subject  as  a  flower  grows 
out  of  a  plant. 


V. 

STORIES    AND    STORY-TELLING, 

That  was  a  profound  and  true  saying  ut- 
tered by  President  G.  Stanley  Hall  not  long 
ago,  that  "of  all  the  things  that  a  teacher 
should  know  how  to  do  the  most  important, 
without  any  exception,  is  to  be  able  to  tell  a 
story."  And  a  student  pursuing  a  university- 
course  in  education,  after  seeking  to  know 
what  stories  to  choose,  where  to  find  them, 
how  and  to  whom  and  wherefore  to  tell  them, 
touched  the  same  truth  when  he  said,  **It 
gradually  dawned  upon  me  that  if  I  knew 
how  to  tell  a  story,  I  had  mastered  the  main 
part  of  the  art  of  teaching. ' '  For  to  know 
a  good  story  is  to  have  literary  and  pedagogic 
taste  ;  to  adapt  or  make  a  good  story  for 
children  is  both  to  know  the  secret  of  the 
mind  of  a  child  and  to  have  creative  power  ; 
to  tell  a  good  story  is  to  be  a  master  of  a 
noble  art. 

The  child' s  thirst  for  stories — has  it  no  sig- 
nificance, and  does  it  not  lay  a  duty  upon 
31 


32  Picture-  Work, 

us?  And  yet  the  insatiableness  of  the  child's 
thirst  is  often  paralleled  by  the  inadequacy 
of  the  teacher's  power  to  satisfy  it,  and  by 
the  parent's  despair  at  being  so  bankrupt  of 
material. 

In  his  admirable  suggestions  for  making 
the  Sunday-school  able  to  appeal  to  the  in- 
terest and  the  respect  of  boys  and  girls  who 
are  no  longer  children,  and  whom  to  treat  as 
children  is  an  offense  against  good  taste  and 
Christian  charity,  Bishop  Vincent  recom- 
mends, among  other  things,  * '  lectures  and 
outlines,  and  independent  statements  by  in- 
dividual pupils  and  teachers."  Story-telling, 
both  by  teachers  and  pupils,  is  here  sug- 
gested  as   a  means  of  further    enrichment. 

The  "wholes"  of  Scripture  narrative, 
whole  books,  whole  lives,  whole  stories  told 
as  wholes  by  the  teacher  or  by  a  single  pupil, 
and  not  picked  out  piecemeal  by  the  teacher 
from  halting  individuals — these  are  the  things 
that  in  the  class  give  interest  and  that  in  the 
mind  live  and  grow  and  bear  fruit.  ' '  Moral 
power  is  the  effect  of  large  unbroken  masses 
of  thought ;  in  these  alone  can  a  strong  inter- 
est be  developed,"  and  from  these  alone  can 
a  steady  will  spring. 

He   who  has  never  read   or   heard   as  a 


stories  a7id  Story- Telling.  33 

whole,  at  one,  or  at  most,  two  sittings,  the 
story  of  an  entire  book  of  the  Bible,  as 
Jonah,  Daniel,  Job,  or  one  of  the  Gospels, 
has  missed  one  of  the  chief  sources  of  inter- 
est and  power. 

Our  course  through  the  Bible — incident  by- 
incident,  verse  by  verse,  here  a  little,  there  a 
little,  years  of  "lessons,"  but  no  idea  even 
of  the  life  of  Christ  as  a  whole — is  not  un- 
like the  toilsome  road  traversed  by  the  boy 
* '  reading  ' '  Caesar  as  his  first  Latin  author  : 
so  many  separate,  mutually  repellant  parts, 
but  no  wholes,  no  idea  of  what  it  is  all  about ; 
or  it  may  be  compared  to  the  route  of  the 
milk-man — a  stop  at  every  other  house,  and 
never  a  good  run. 

Not  one  of  these  plodders,  the  Sunday- 
school  pupil,  the  young  Latin  student,  the 
milk-man's  hack,  can  be  looked  upon  as  a 
model  of  spiritedness  or  of  continuity. 

A  teacher  of  English  in  the  old  days,  when 
literature  was  used  chiefly  as  a  clothes-line  on 
which  to  air  grammatical  linen,  was  once 
guilty  of  giving  out  a  lesson  in  Washington 
Irving  —  so  many  constructions,  figures, 
analyses,  so  many  pages,  and  no  more.  The 
end  came  in  the  middle  of  the  ride  of  the 
headless  horseman.   But  by  the  time  the  next 


34  Picture-  Work, 

class  studied  Jrving  the  teacher  had  met  with 
a  change.  The  Hmit  of  the  first  lesson  was 
set  according  to  the  structure  of  the  story. 
The  pupils  were  told  to  read  the  story. 

"  Only  read  it  !  "  said  they,  "Aren't  we  to 
do  anything  with  it?" 

"No,"  said  the  teacher,  "you  are  to  read 
it  for  fun. ' ' 

Should  one  be  in  danger  of  being  misun- 
derstood in  saying  that  we  do  not  have 
enough  of  reading  the  Bible  for  fun,  for  the 
pure  enjoyment  of  its  stories  and  of  its 
matchless  pictures?  The  rest  will  come  in 
due  course.  It  will  come  just  so  surely  as 
the  story  is  realized. 

But  important  as  reading  is,  telling  is  in- 
comparably better.  The  eye  c ''  the  teacher 
is  then  fixed  on  the  class,  not  on  the  book  ; 
the  tone  is  conversational,  the  hand  is  free 
to  gesture  and  to  draw.  One  can  grasp  the 
whole  of  the  story  and  the  whole  of  the  sit- 
uation. One  can  bring  out  dramatic  power. 
For  there  are  few  stories  that  do  not  have 
some  dramatic  quality,  both  in  the  making 
and  in  the  telling.  The  following  points 
kept  in  mind  will  aid  the  teacher  : 

I.  The  story  must  have  a  beginning,  con- 
crete,  interest-compelling,   curiosity-piquing. 


Stories  and  Story-  Telling.  35 

*  'AH  things  have  two  handles  ;  beware  of  the 
wrong  one. ' ' 

2.  It  must  have  a  cHmax,  properly  led  up 
to,  easily  led  down  from  ;  and  that  never 
missed. 

3.  Many  good  stories  have  rhythm,  recur- 
rence, repetition  of  the  kit  motiv.  * '  The 
Three  Bears  "  is  a  favorite  for  this  reason, 
among  others.  The  commands  of  the  Lord 
to  Moses  were  regularly  repeated  thrice  in 
the  Bible  story  ;  in  the  book  of  Daniel  the 
sonorous  catalogue  of  flute,  harp,  sackbut, 
and  the  rest,  comes  in  none  too  often  for  the 
purposes  of  the  story-teller. 

4.  All  good  stories  have  unity  ;  parts  well 
subordinated  ;  the  main  lesson  unmistakably 
clear  ;  the  point,  whether  tactfully  hidden  or 
brought  out  by  skilful  questions,  never 
missed. 

This  use  of  stories  by  exactly  reproducing 
them  is  naturally  the  teacher's  first  method. 
There  follow  naturally  the  adaptation  oi 
stories  and  the  making  of  original  stories. 
The  latter  way  must  be  dismissed  with  a 
single  word  of  caution.  Beware  of  a  certain 
fatal  facility  in  reeling  off  ' '  made-up  ' ' 
stories.  Have  you  not  heard  such  teachers 
and  such  stories  ?     The  latter  at  least  are  not 


36  Picture-  Work. 

true,  or  healthy,  or  wholesome.  They  are 
about  unreal  people  who  do  unnatural  things. 
They  are  a  poor,  ragged  device  for  covering 
the  nakedness  of  barefaced  moralizing. 

No  one  who  has  tried  to  tell  Bible  stories 
to  children,  whether  young  or  old,  can  fail  to 
appreciate  the  need  of  adaptation  :  of  en- 
richment and  expansion  on  the  one  hand,  of 
condensation  on  the  other.  Suppose  the 
story  to  be  told  is  the  parable  of  the  Good 
Samaritan.  There  must  first  be  preliminary 
work.  The  minds  of  the  children  must  be 
made  ready,  not  merely  for  the  lesson,  as,  for 
example,  by  a  talk  on  the  meaning  of 
"neighbor,"  but  also  for  the  story.  This 
latter  kind  of  preparation  for  three  reasons  : 

1.  To  give  your  hearers  something  of  the 
same  knowledge  about  the  road  from  Jeru- 
salem to  Jericho,  the  relations  of  Jews  and 
Samaritans,  the  standing  and  dignity  of 
high  priests  and  Levites  possessed  by  those 
who  heard  the  parable  from  the  lips  of  Jesus. 

2.  To  give  the  setting  of  the  story — time, 
place,  people,  customs,  atmosphere. 

3.  To  make  the  language,  the  steps,  the 
moral,  as  intelligible  to  your  hearers  as  they 
were  to  the  young  lawyer  to  whom  the  story 
was  first  told. 


Stories  and  Story-  Telling.  37 

The  need  of  the  first  way  of  filling  in  the 
picture  is  brought  out  by  Mrs.  Gaskoin  in 
the  "Children's  Treasury  of  Bible  Stories," 
Part  III.: 

*•  Pages  might  be  written  about  this  parable,  for 
every  line  is  full  of  teaching,  wrapped  in  beautiful 
words.  But  my  object  just  now  is  only  to  draw 
your  attention  to  the  circumstance  that  the  third 
person  who  passed  the  wounded  man — and  the 
only  one  who  cared  about  his  sufferings  and  took 
pains  to  relieve  them — was  a  Samaritan.  On  this  the 
point  of  the  story  turns.  First  a  priest,  and  then  a 
Levite,  whose  very  offices  alone  should  have  made 
them  ready  helpers,  had  shunned  their  poor  coun- 
tryman, and  had  passed  on  without  even  a  word 
of  sympathy.  But  the  person  who  did  pity  him, 
and,  indeed,  showered  kindnesses  upon  him,  was, 
not  only  neither  priest  nor  Levite,  not  only  a  mere 
stranger — but  a  Samaritan.  Now  to  say  this  was 
the  same  thing  to  the  "  lawyer  "  who  was  listening 
to  the  tale  as  to  say  that  he  was  an  enemy.  The 
Lord  could  have  chosen  no  stronger  expression  ; 
in  using  it  he  spoke  quite  as  plainly  as  when,  once 
before,  his  words  had  been  these  :  *  I  say  unto 
you  which  hear  :  Love  your  enemies,  do  good  to 
them  which  hate  you,  bless  them  that  curse  you  ! ' 
Clearly,  then,  it  is  only  by  understanding  how  the 
Jews  felt  toward  the  Samaritans,  that  we  can  grasp 
what  the  blessed  Savior  meant  when  he  said  that 
every  disciple  of  his  must  love  his  *  neighbor '  as 
himself" 

A  striking  example  of  the  mode  of  using  a 


38  Picture-  Work. 

full  knowledge  of  customs  and  people  to  en- 
rich the  story  is  given  by  the  same  author  in 
the  following  vivid  word-picture  of  the  thrill- 
ing experience  of  Zacharias.  After  describ- 
ing the  method  of  choosing  by  lot  the  priests 
to  take  charge  of  the  temple  services,  the 
narrative  continues  : 

"To  Zacharias,  however,  one  autumn,  the  coveted 
lot  did  fall,  and  leaving  his  quiet  home,  he  went  up 
to  Jerusalem,  and  there  entered  at  once  upon  his 
sacred  duties.  They  lasted  for  eight  days,  includ- 
ing two  Sabbaths Every  morning  at 

nine  o'clock,  and  every  afternoon  at  three,  a  priest 
entered  the  Holy  Place  to  sprinkle  the  incense-offer- 
ing on  the  golden  altar.  He  was  accompanied  by  an 
assistant  priest,  who  withdrew  as  soon  as  he  had 
made  the  necessary  preparations.  The  privilege 
of  sprinkling  the  incense-offering,  like  the  other 
priestly  functions,  was  bestowed  by  lot.  One  day, 
during  his  week  of  attendance  in  the  Temple,  the 
lot  fell  upon  Zacharias.  So,  in  his  white  robes, 
with  bare  feet  and  covered  head,  he  went  slowly 
up,  through  court  after  court,  to  the  entrance  of 
the  Holy  Place.  Then  a  bell  rang,  all  the  other 
ministrants  on  duty  in  the  Temple  took  their 
places,  and  the  people  assembled  in  the  various 
courts  composed  themselves  for  prayer.  Zacharias 
disappeared  within  the  sacred  enclosure,  and  in 
due  course  his  attendant  left  him  alone  there,  sepa- 
rated from  the  Holy  of  Holies  itself  only  by  the 
splendid  Veil-of-Partition.  Silvery  clouds  of  fra- 
grant smoke  presently  arose  from  the  kindled  in- 


Stories  and  Story-  Telling.  39 

cense — then,  kneeling  before  the  altar,  he  paused, 
in  prayer  and  adoration.  Suddenly  he  became 
aware  that  he  was  not  alone.  Lifting  his  eyes  he 
saw,  to  the  right  of  the  altar,  a  glorious  angel, 
who  thus  addressed  him,  dispelling  his  gathering 
fear  :  '  Fear  not,  Zacharias,  for  thy  prayer  is 
heard,  and  thy  wife  Elizabeth  shall  bear  thee  a 
son,  and  thou  shalt  call  his  name  John.'  .... 
'  Whereby  shall  I  know  this  ? '  he  asked,  hesita- 
tingly. And  the  angel,  answering,  said  unto  him, 
*  I  am  Gabriel,  that  stand  in  the  presence  of  God, 
and  am  sent  to  speak  unto  thee,  and  to  show  thee 
these  glad  tidings.  And  behold  thou  shalt  be 
dumb  and  not  able  to  speak,  until  the  day  that 
these  things  shall  be  performed,  because  thou  be- 
lievest  not  my  words,  which  shall  be  fulfilled  in 
their  season.' 

"Meanwhile  the  people  were  anxiously  waiting 
for  Zacharias  to  return.  His  reappearance  would 
be  the  signal  for  the  laying  of  the  sacrifice  upon 
the  altar,  accompanied  by  a  joyous  outburst  of  the 
beautiful  Temple  music.  Great,  then,  was  their 
uneasy  wonder  at  the  unusual  delay.  But  at  last 
he  did  appear." 

An  illustration  of  what  Is  meant  by  re-tell- 
ing the  old  story  in  a  modern  way  for  modern 
hearers  is  found  in  the  following  characteris- 
tic extract  from  a  sermon  of  Dr.  Parkhurst's 
on  the  text,  "And  he  arose  and  came  to  his 
father ' ' : 

"The  prodigal  had  not  enjoyed  nearly  as  much 


40  Picture-  Work. 

as  he  expected — what  he  had  arranged  to  enjoy. 
His  scheme  had  collapsed  ;  his  experiment  broken 
down.  Going  away  from  home  and  living  as 
though  he  had  no  home  had  not  worked  as  he  ex- 
pected that  it  was  going  to.  Lonely,  ragged,  hun- 
gry, he  thought  the  thing  all  over  and  said  to  him- 
self: *  I  think  I  had  better  go  home.'  He  had  let 
go  of  home,  but  home  had  declined  to  let  go  of 
him.  He  had  been  his  father's  boy  for  twenty 
years  or  more,  and  his  experience  in  the  far  coun- 
try had  not  been  quite  able  to  cure  him  of  it. 
Home  still  had  a  pull  upon  him." 

While  many  of  the  stories  both  of  the  Old 
and  of  the  New  Testament  need  expansion 
rather  than  contraction — think  of  trying  to 
bring  the  masterly  story  of  Jonah  or  the 
wonderfully  simple  tale  of  the  Shunemite's 
son  into  any  smaller  compass  ! — yet  the  need 
of  condensing  the  long  stories,  of  Abraham, 
Joseph,  David,  Daniel,  for  instance,  is  ob- 
vious, for  we  must  give  the  children  a 
picture  of  the  whole  life  and  character  of 
these  great  and  simple  figures.  To  this  end 
selection  and  suppression  are  necessary. 

The  various  books  mentioned  in  a  later 
chapter  are  all  more  or  less  successful  in  the 
attempt  to  recast  the  old  original  story.  So 
perfect  is  the  original  form,  however,  that 
the  task  is  one  of  extreme  difficulty.     Yet  it 


Stories  and  Story -Telling.  41 

must  be  attempted  by  every  teacher,  and  it 
is  certainly  worth  a  trial.  The  following 
suggestions  may  prove  helpful  in  both  modes 
of  adaptation  : 

1.  Use  direct  discourse.  It  will  require 
an  effort  to  keep  yourself  (in  your  embar- 
rassment) from  taking  refuge  behind  the 
indirect  form,  saying,  for  example,  * '  And 
when  he  came  to  himself  he  said  that  he 
would  arise  and  go  to  his  father  and  tell  him 
that  he  had  sinned. ' ' 

2.  Choose  actions  rather  than  descriptions, 
the  dynamics  rather  than  the  statics  of  your 
subject.  Those  of  us  who  have  grown  away 
from  childhood  tend  to  reverse  the  true 
order,  to  place  the  emphasis  on  the  ques- 
tion, "What  kind  of  a  man  was  he,"  and 
not  on,  "What  did  he  do."  Let  what  he 
did  tell  what  he  was.  Your  story  will  thus 
have  * '  go, ' '  as  all  Bible  stories  have. 

3.  Use  concrete  terms,  not  abstract ;  tell 
what  was  done,  not  how  somebody  felt  or 
thought  when  something  was  being  done  ; 
be  objective,  not  subjective. 

4.  A  story-teller  should,  in  short,  have 
taste.  To  form  this  taste  it  is  indispensable 
that  he  should  not  read,  but  drink  in  the 
great   masters  :   Homer,    Chaucer,    Bunyan, 


42  Picture-  Work. 

Hawthorne  ("The  Wonder  Book,"  for  ex- 
ample), and  above  all  the  Bible  itself.  No 
one  can  absorb  these  without  unconsciously 
forming  a  pure,  simple  style  and  getting  a 
more  childlike  point  of  view  and  way  of 
speech.  Modern  writers  and  modern  ways  of 
thinking  are,  in  general,  too  reflective,  self- 
conscious,  subjective,  and,  where  children  are 
concerned,  too  direct,  bare,  "preachy." 

5.  But  the  secret  of  story-telling  lies  not 
in  following  rules,  not  in  analyzing  processes, 
not  even  in  imitating  good  models,  though 
these  are  all  necessary,  but  first  of  all  in 
being  full — full  of  the  story,  the  picture,  the 
children  ;  and  then,  in  being  morally  and 
spiritually  up  to  concert  pitch,  which  is  the 
true  source  of  power  in  anything.  From 
these  comes  spontaneity  ;  what  is  within 
must  come  out  ;  the  story  tells  itself ;  and 
of  your  fulness  the  children  all  receive. 

Finally,  the  points  of  practical  story-telling 
may  be  thus  outlined  : 

1.  See  it.  If  you  are  to  make  me  see  it 
you  must  see  it  yourself 

2.  Feel  it.  If  it  is  to  touch  your  class  it 
must  first  have  touched  you. 

3.  Shorten  it.  It  is  probably  too  long. 
Brevity  is  the  soul  of  story-telling. 


Stories  a?id  Story-  Telling.  43 

4.  Expand  it.  It  is  probably  meager  in 
necessary  background,  in  details. 

5.  Master  it.  Practice.  Repetition  is  the 
mother  of  stories  well  told  ;  readiness,  the 
secret  of  classes  well  held. 

6.  Repeat  it.  Don' t  be  afraid  of  re-telling 
a  good  story.  The  younger  the  children  are, 
the  better  they  like  old  friends.  But  every 
one  loves  a  * '  twice-told  tale. ' ' 


VI. 

SOME    FIRST     PRINCIPLES  :     UNITY,   REALITY, 
ORDER. 

Unity. 

One  of  the  greatest  oi  American  preachers 
never  goes  beyond  ' '  firstly. ' '  He  makes 
but  one  point  in  each  sermon.  But  he 
makes  that  point,  drives  it  home,  burns  it  in, 
wears  a  crease  in  the  brain  that  nothing  can 
ever  iron  out.  Every  picture — and  those 
sermons  are  full  of  pictures — bears  upon  that 
one  point,  and  every  argument  and  lesson, 
for  which  the  pictures  have  been  laying  the 
foundation,  is  a  part  of  the  same  unity.  You 
never  hear  him  say,  '  'And  we  learn  further, ' ' 
but  always,  ' '  The  same  truth  comes  out  in 
another  way."  One  is  never  more  than  two 
bases  away  from  the  home  plate.  It  is  not  a 
cross-country  run,  but  a  game  of  score  and 
tally. 

At  the  opposite  pole  from  this  intensive 
method  is  the  typical  Sunday-school  lesson. 
The  typical   Sunday-school  lesson   is — is  it 


Some  First  Principles,  45 

not? — hodge-podge.  Does  the  last  lesson 
always  bear  upon  the  lesson  of  to-day  ?  Is 
to-day's  aim  single?  Do  you  hold  before 
your  mind  the  one  point,  the  one  picture, 
that  your  pupils  shall  carry  away  with  them 
as  an  everlasting  possession,  or  do  you  have 
in  mind  to  display  so  many  pictures,  so  many 
points,  that  some  must  needs  take  effect  ? 

It  is  easier — at  least  it  is  lazier — to  pro- 
vide many  thi7igs  than  to  prepare  much. 
One  can  rake  over  an  acre  more  easily  than 
dig  one  post-hole.  And  the  deeper  you  go 
the  harder  grows  the  digging.  But  it's  the 
last  six  inches  of  hole  that  makes  firm  the 
top  two  feet  of  post. 

Now  pictures  help  toward  unity  of  aim  in  a 
lesson  in  two  ways  :  they  help  to  elaborate 
the  one  main  point — twenty  illustrations  of 
one  point,  not  twenty  points  from  one  illus- 
tration ;  they  help  to  teach  us  the  law  of 
unity,  for  a  true  picture  has  but  one  theme, 
is  always  simple. 

Reality. 

' '  The  great  trouble  with  the  stuff  taught 
in  our  schools  is  that  so  much  of  it  always 
remains  stUj^,  and  never  gets  worked  up  into 
doy.'*     So  said  Dr.   Parkhurst,  in  a  sermon 


46  Picture-  Work, 

from  the  text,  ' '  Taste  and  see  that  the  Lord 
is  good."  The  only  way  to  work  up  the 
raw  materials  of  a  boy  into  real  boy  is  to 
bring  him  into  touch  with  them,  to  have  him 
taste,  see,  handle.  But  in  order  to  be  tasted 
these  materials  must  be  real.  And  to  make 
them  real  is  the  first  duty  of  the  teacher.  It 
is  also  his  hardest  task.  For  consider  what 
it  costs  to  make  a  thing  so  real  to  yourself 
that  it  can't  help  being  real  to  some  one  else ! 
Ah  !  there's  the  rub.  It  costs  to  do  that — 
costs  time,  pains,  life. 

How  long  did  the  Lord  make  Ezekiel  lie 
on  his  left  side,  and  how  long  on  his  right 
side,  without  the  relief  of  turning  over  from  one 
side  to  the  other,  before  he  judged  him  ready 
to  deliver  his  message  with  a  due  sense  of  the 
"reality  of  its  import?  Three  hundred  and 
ninety  days  "  for  the  iniquity  of  the  house  of 
Israel,"  forty  days  more  "for  the  iniquity  of 
the  house  of  Judah  ' ' ;  each  day  for  a  year.. 
After  that  there  was  no  lack  of  a  "  realizing 
sense"  in  Ezekiel.  He  had  "been  there" 
himself  And  was  it  by  way  of  mere  luxury 
or  was  it  from  pedagogical  necessity  that  the 
Lord  showed  himself  last  of  all  to  Paul  also, 
and  sent  him  into  the  desert,  for  a  year 
or  more,  to  think  it  over  and  get  a  real  grip 


Some  First  Principles.  47 

on  the  experience  ?  It  was  a  true  instinct 
that  made  Thomas,  the  doubting  one,  want  to 
reinforce  a  sight-picture  by  a  touch-picture. 
A  dose  of  the  same  ' '  doubt ' '  would  be  a 
tonic  to  much  of  the  pale  '  'faith' '  in  the  world. 

When  I  was  a  boy  I  wrote,  after  the  fashion 
of  the  day,  an  "essay"  on  a  subject  about 
which  I  had  the  slenderest  knowledge.  A 
tannery  lay  on  my  way  to  school,  and  the  tan- 
ner would  have  been  friendly  and  communi- 
cative, but  the  encyclopedia  article, 
"Leather,"  was  my  sole  authority.  You 
may  imagine  the  result  :  a  cold,  dead  thing, 
not  in  the  least  savoring  of  real  leather.  On 
the  other  hand,  when  I  became  a  man,  I 
traveled  a  thousand  miles  merely  to  see,  and 
hear  the  voice  of,  a  master  whom  I  admired 
and  whose  picture  I  wished  to  have  hanging 
in  my  mind.  Who  has  not,  when  freed  from 
the  dead  atmosphere  of  the  schools,  done  a 
like  thing?  And  with  what  gain  to  the 
precious  sense  of  reality  ! 

The  whole  country,  not  long  since,  was 
touched — many  people  were  shocked — by  the 
news  that  a  Christian  minister  had  dared  to 
see  with  his  own  eyes  the  evils  he  was  fight- 
ing, the  existence  of  which  he  had  been 
challenged  to  prove.       Many  good  people  at 


48  Picture-  Work. 

that  time  thought  he  had  made  a  mistake. 
He  said,  "  It  is  necessary  that  some  one  see 
these  things.  Do  you  think  that  I  would  be 
so  base  as  to  ask  another  to  do  what  I  would 
not  do  myself? "  The  result  has  proved  the 
soundness  of  this  position.  No  one  now 
doubts  that  Dr.  Parkhurst  was  in  the  right. 
For  not  only  were  the  facts  shown  to  exist  as 
alleged,  but  (and  this  is  the  point)  the  man 
himself  who  had  seen  them  was  so  filled  with 
a  burning  sense  of  their  terrible  reality,  that 
he  clung  to  his  point  with  an  everlasting 
grip,  carried  it  triumphantly,  and  laid  the 
foundations  of  our  "  civic  renaissance." 

The  vast  audience  who  heard  Bishop  Tho- 
burn,  missionary  to  India  for  thirty  years, 
at  Chautauqua,  was  stirred  to  its  depths  by 
the  simple  power  of  the  man.  What  was 
the  secret  of  his  power?  It  did  not  lie  in 
his  bodily  presence  ;  it  grew  out  of  what 
the  man  had  done.  He  was  a  man  of  action. 
He  had  given  his  life,  and  had  lived.  His 
speech  was  of  that  which  he  had  lived. 
You  felt  that  he  had  a  right  to  speak — for 
every  sentence  had  behind  it  weeks  of  real 
life. 

Who  has  not  felt  the  same  when  listening 
to  one  who  speaks   of   that  which  he  does 


Some  First  Principles.  49 

know  ?  And  who  has  not  felt  the  difference 
when  trying  to  Hsten  to  one  who  talks,  but 
whose  words  are  not  loaded  with  life  ? 

You  must  have  seen,  acted,  felt,  if  you 
would  make  your  hearers  see  and  feel  and 
act.  Talk  is  cheap,  especially  borrowed 
talk.  It  is  not  the  story  in  the  lesson  quar- 
terly that  you  can  build  into  the  lives  of 
your  class  ;  it  is  the  story  in  you.  It  is  the 
picture  that  has  become  a  part  of  your  life, 
that  will  be  most  likely  to  be  built  into  the 
fabric  of  theirs. 

Order. 

The  way  in  which  a  subject  lies  in  the  mind 
of  an  ordinary,  unregenerate  adult,  one  may 
be  safe  in  saying,  is  just  the  wrong  way — the 
way  in  which  it  should  not  be  presented  to  a 
child.  The  order  of  exposition  is  in  general 
the  reverse  of  the  order  of  acquisition.  The 
natural  man  who  has  forgotten  how  things 
look  to  the  eyes  of  a  child  has  a  tendency  to 
put  things  wrong  end  to  ;  word  first,  thing 
last ;  precept  first,  example  last  ;  to  plunge 
in  medias  res  without  introduction — in  short, 
to  put  the  mental  or  spiritual  cart  before  the 
horse.  And  it  requires  self-sacrifice  to  reverse 
the  order,  enter  into  the  limitations  of  a  little 


50  Picture-  Work. 

child's  mind,  see  with  his  eyes,  think  his 
thoughts. 

It  is  a  favorite  simile  among  writers  on  ed- 
ucation that  the  mind  is  not  unlike  a  field, 
and  that  the  steps  of  instruction  answer  to 
the  successive  stages  of  the  farmer's  work. 
First  there  is  the  preparation  of  the  soil,  then 
come  the  planting,  the  cultivating,  and  in  due 
time  the  harvest,  the  mill,  and  the  market. 
Two  of  these  steps,  the  preparing  and  the 
applying,  concern  us  here  ;  the  work  of  pre- 
senting and  elaborating  is  a  theme  by  itself, 
and  has  been  treated  in  a  separate  chapter. 

I.   Preparing  the  ground  :  Approach. 

The  art  of  ' '  getting  a  good  ready  "  is  an 
art  worth  mastering.  In  sermon  or  Sunday- 
school  lesson  alike  the  beginning  is  the  main 
concern.  It  is  a  good  plan  to  seem  to  waste 
time  at  the  start.  Nine  tenths  plowing,  har- 
rowing, marking  out,  one  tenth  sowing,  and 
(as  we  shall  see)  no  looking  for  a  crop  at  all, 
is  a  just  proportion  for  the  most  of  our  les- 
sons. We  shall  be  always  safe  in  counting 
upon  a  sufficient  number  of  stony-ground 
hearers  to  justify  us  in  clearing  the  ground, 
and  making  it  mellow  with  interest  and  ex- 
pectation. And  even  those  who  would  re- 
ceive the  word  with  gladness  cannot  take  it 


Some  First  Pri7iciples.  51 

in  unless  they  have  something  to  grasp  it 
with,  cannot  hear  without  something  to  hear 
with.  And  this  must  be  given  them  by  the 
teacher. 

We  arfe  here  at  the  very  heart  of  the  science 
of  teaching.  A  little  two-year-old  child  will 
serve  us  as  an  example.  He  is  to  be  put  in 
bed  in  a  strange  room,  and  is  to  go  to  sleep 
alone.  Spring  the  idea  upon  him  and  he  will 
reject  it.  Prepare  him  for  it,  by  telling  him  a 
story  of  a  little  boy  who  went  to  bed  in  a  new 
room,  a  new  bed,  and  all  alone,  and  he  is 
eager  for  the  hour  of  bed-time.  When  the 
time  comes,  the  picture  already  in  his  mind, 
of  a  little  boy,  a  new  room,  a  peaceful  going 
to  bed,  welcomes  the  actual  experience,  point 
for  point.  The  wise  mother  has  made  a  nest 
for  the  experience. 

So  might  a  teacher  prepare  the  minds  of 
his  pupils  to  receive  the  idea  of  ninety  mil- 
lions of  miles. 

"If  any  one  there  in  the  sun  fired  off  a  can- 
non straight  at  you,  what  should  you  do  ?  " 

' '  Get  out  of  the  way, ' '  would  be  the  an- 
swer. 

"  No  need  of  that,"  the  teacher  might  re- 
ply. ' '  You  may  quietly  go  to  sleep  in  your 
room,  and  get  up  again  ;  you  may  learn  a 


52  Picture-  Work. 

trade,  and  grow  as  old  as  I  am — then  only- 
will  the  cannon-ball  be  getting  near,  then  you 
may  jump  to  one  side  !  See,  so  great  as 
that  is  the  sun's  distance  !  " 

So  writes  a  German  teacher — explaining 
the  law  of  apperception,  of  making  a  nest 
for  the  idea. 

We  cannot  understand — cannot  even  see 
or  hear — the  absolutely  new.  Every  new 
plan  or  way  of  looking  at  things,  or  doctrine, 
is  received  into  the  mind  on  one  condition 
only — that  it  be  introduced  by  a  comrade 
already  there.  Then  when  the  new  idea 
calls  from  without,  its  fellow  answers  from 
within,   and  an  entrance  is  effected. 

The  bearing  of  this  upon  our  theme  is 
illustrated  by  the  plan  of  a  school  principal, 
recently  described  to  me,  to  eradicate  the 
plague  of  stealing  that  had  broken  out  in  the 
school.  He  talked  to  the  pupils  of  giants, 
drew  out  the  children's  ideas,  and  by  effective 
picture- work  made  the  creatures  out  to  be  an 
ugly,  uncanny  crew.  He  then  was  ready  to 
declare  to  the  children  that  he  had  dis- 
covered a  giant  in  the  school,  and  in  due 
time  told  them  his  name — Selfishness,  I 
think  it  was — and  then  described  his  evil 
works.     The  moral  of  this  story  is  that  the 


Some  First  Priticiples.  53 

plan  worked,  and  stealing  disappeared  from 
the  school  from  that  day. 

Who  of  us  teachers  might  not  be  emulous 
of  becoming  thus  skilful  in  mellowing  the 
soil  and  making  it  warm  in  the  genial  sun- 
shine of  true  picture-work  ? 

2.   Gathering  the  crop  :  Taste. 

If  deliberation  is  a  virtue  at  the  start, 
brevity  and  patience  are  a  necessity  at  the 
finish.  When  the  teacher  has  planted  an 
interest-awakening  picture  in  the  minds  of 
the  children,  his  main  work  is  done.  He 
may  safely  leave  them  to  make  the  applica- 
tion. He  has  supplied  the  cause  ;  the  effect 
will  take  care  of  itself.  It  is  often  convenient 
and  suggestive  to  remember  that  children 
are  not  fools.  "A  child  knows  a  thing  or 
two,"  'tis  said,  "before  he  knows  much  of 
anything."  And  one  of  the  very  first  things 
he  knows  is  how  to  put  his  finger  on  the 
moral  in  a  story  ;  and  he  can  feel  it  long 
before  he  knows  it.  But  that  is  when  he 
is  left  to  himself.  If  you  take  the  helm,  ten 
to  one  he'll  know  without  feeling,  which  is 
the  curse  of  us  all.  Better,  if  we  must  choose, 
that  he  feel  without  knowing  in  terms,  than 
indulge  in  mere  intellectual  casuistry. 

In  your  childish  haste  to  have  a  crop  or  to 


54  Picture-  Work. 

see  what  was  going  on  under  ground,  did 
you  ever  unearth  the  newly-planted  row  of 
peas?  And  was  that  row  ever  so  green  and 
straight  and  thick-standing  as  those  that  had 
been  let  alone  ?  But  the  plants  of  love  to 
God  and  moral  taste  are  tenderer  than  these. 
They  must  be  shined  upon,  warmed,  and 
watered  many  days  before  they  are  ready  to 
give  an  account  of  themselves.  Love  is  a 
silent  thing  before  it  is  outspoken.  True 
feeling  has  few  words,  is  not  self-conscious, 
likes  not  to  be  asked  questions.  In  its  own 
good  time  it  wells  up  and  finds  vent  in  deeds, 
and  even  in  words. 

The  deepest  thing  a  teacher  does  is  to 
form  taste.  But  all  taste  grows  slowly,  by 
unconscious  accretion.  The  Chinese  money- 
changer sets  his  apprentice  at  work  handling 
good  money  only.  For  ten  years  he  touches 
nothing  else.  He  can  then  detect  a  counter- 
feit coin.  How?  Perhaps  he  cannot  tell 
how.  His  way  is  surer,  deeper.  He  feels 
it.  He  has  taste.  So  with  the  building  of 
the  taste  for  good  books,  for  pictures,  for 
nature.  It  is  a  slow  process — many  a  book 
to  be  absorbed,  picture  seen  and  loved,  and 
mountain  and  flower  and  sunset  gazed  upon, 
before  taste  is  formed. 


Some  First  Principles.  55 

And  the  taste  for  godliness,  for  religion,  is 
no  exception.  It  is  the  finest  and  rarest  of 
all  tastes,  and  hence  is  the  slowest  and 
quietest  of  all  in  its  development. 

But  did  you  ever  see,  in  the  hot  house, 
shall  we  say,  of  the  Sunday-school,  seed 
sown,  harvest  reaped,  yes,  and  cakes  taken 
from  the  oven,  within  the  limits  of  a  single 
half  hour  ?  Does  the  figure  halt,  or  was  it  a 
miraculous  quickening  of  the  processes  of 
nature,  or  was  it  in  truth  a  great  mistake 
and  a  sin  against  natural  spiritual  growth  ? 

There  need  be  no  fear,  then,  that  the 
children  will  not  feel,  and  in  time  know,  the 
meaning,  for  them,  of  their  stories  and 
pictures.  And  a  wise  teacher  well  knows 
the  ways  of  helping  them  :  by  questioning, 
not  directly,  and  by  hiding  the  moral  so  near 
the  surface  that  it  will  come  forth  of  itself. 


vn. 

HOW   TO    LEARN   HOW. 

The  foregoing  chapters  have  dealt  chiefly 
with  the  theory  of  picture-work,  answering 
the  questions  what  and  why.  But  practical 
teachers  will  go  a  step  further  and  ask  where 
to  find  and  how  to  use  materials,  what  to  do 
first,  what  next,  in  becoming  expert  in  using 
and  making  pictures,  stories,  and  illustra- 
tions ;  in  short,  how  to  learn  how.  Those 
who  are  not  of  the  practical  sort  should  omit 
this  chapter,  and  no  one  should  expect  to  en- 
joy or  profit  by  it  who  has  not  the  time  and 
the  will  to  go  through  the  exercises  de- 
scribed. 

Models.  A  study  of  some  of  the  remark- 
able pictures  of  secular  literature  will  reveal 
many  points  in  story-telling. 

Mark  how  Chaucer  made  such  a  picture  of 

his  Canterbury    pilgrims  that   not  only    the 

color,  the  action,  and  the  characters  of  the 

scene,  but  also  the  very  atmosphere  of  the 

56 


How  to  Learn  How.  57 

jolly  crowd  has  been  clear  and  vivid  for  more 
than  four  centuries. 

Macaulay  boasted  that  he  would  write  a 
history  which  would  supersede  the  latest 
novel  on  the  tables  of  the  young  ladies  of  the 
day.  How  did  he  accomplish  this  ?  Read 
his  "History  of  England"  and  learn  the 
secret  of  the  power  to  picture. 

Study  George  Eliot's  "Silas  Marner"  to 
learn  how  to  tell  a  story.  The  interest  never 
flags,  the  proper  perspective  is  always  main- 
tained, light  and  shade  are  in  due  propor- 
tion, and  the  lesson  to  be  learned  is  taken, 
not  as  a  bitter  dose,  but  as  one  drinks  in  the 
fresh  air  of  a  clear  May  morning. 

Study  pictures  of  Bible  scenes  by  great 
masters  to  see  what  aspect  of  the  scene — 
what  moment  of  the  event — the  painter  chose 
as  the  climax  of  interest  and  meaning.  Al- 
though the  aim  in  Sunday-school  work  is 
spiritual  and  not  artistic,  the  heart  will  be 
reached  more  surely  if  the  eyes  are  appealed 
to  and  a  subordinate  artistic  aim  is  kept  al- 
ways in  mind. 

What  is  the  favorite  view-point  in  pictur- 
ing Noah's  ark  (the  procession — a  source  of 
never-failing  interest  to  old  and  young — is  a 
conspicuous  feature)  ;    in   Abraham's  sacri- 


58  Picture-  Work. 

rifice  (Andrea  del  Sarto  seizes  the  moment 
when  Abraham  is  about  to  slay  Isaac  and 
the  ram  appears  in  the  thicket)  ;  in  the  early 
life  of  Moses  ?  Note  also  the  subjects  in  the 
life  of  Christ  oftenest  chosen  by  the  artist. 

In  what  parables  does  Christ  choose  a 
definite  locality  well  known  to  his  hearers, 
definite  characters,  a  definite  point  and  only 
one,  a  definite  purpose,  and  a  clearly  defined 
and  applied  moral  ?  In  the  presentation  of 
which  parables  do  we  not  find  simple  lan- 
guage, direct  discourse,  a  dramatic  style,  and 
a  question  in  order  to  drive  home  the  point  ? 

Try  the  effect  of  substituting  in  any  one  of 
the  parables  indirect  discourse  for  direct, 
statements  for  questions. 

Make  a  study  of  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount 
with  a  view  of  finding  opportunities  for  pic- 
ture-work. 

On  hov^  many  and  on  w^hat  occasions  did 
Jesus  use  objects  in  his  teaching?  Might  he 
not  have  gotten  along  without  using  the  ob- 
jects themselves  on  those  occasions?  What 
seems  to  have  been  his  purpose  ?  What  was 
the  result? 

Seeing.  Suppose  that  you  were  an  artist 
searching  in  the  Bible  for  scenes  to  paint : 

I.  What  picture  would  you  find  in  Mat- 


How  to  Learn  How.  59 

thew  VIII.,  verse  i?  verse  2?  verse  3? 
verse  4  ?  Can  you  see  (and  hear)  each  of 
these  ? 

2.  What  is  the  picture  in  the  whole  passage 
(verses  1-4)  ?  How  many  elements  has  it, 
in  respect  of  number,  form,  color,  sound, 
atmosphere  ? 

3.  Which  of  these  should  be  chosen  in 
telling  the  story  to  children,  and  in  what 
order  ? 

4.  How  many  pictures  are  there  in  verses 
5-13  ?     What  is  the  central  picture  ? 

5.  In  verses  23-27.  How  many  pictures 
are  there  in  this  passage  ?  Which  is  the 
central  picture?  How  would  you  lead  the 
pupils  to  see  it?  What  first?  what  next? 
what  last  ? 

6.  In  Matthew,  chapters  ix.  and  xiii.  How 
many  separate  pictures  are  there?  Which 
are  the  most  important  to  try  to  see  ?  What 
objects,  pictures,  drawings,  maps,  would  you 
use  in  making  it  real  to  your  class  ? 

Construction.  In  the  previous  chapter 
there  was  brought  out  the  need  of  adapting 
the  stories  of  the  Bible  to  the  comprehension 
of  modern  hearers.  Suggestions  were  given 
both  for  cutting  down  and  filling  in. 

Choose  a  story,  as  of  the  brave  Hebrew 


6o  Picture-  Work. 

boys  who  stood  by  what  they  thought  was 
right  even  in  captivity  ;  the  young  king  who 
asked  God  to  give  him  wisdom  and  whose 
way  of  ruHng  showed  that  his  request  had 
been  granted  ;  the  shepherd  boy  whom  the 
Lord  chose  ;  or  choose  an  incident,  or  a 
period  of  a  year  of  the  life  of  Christ  (as  the 
'*  Year  of  Beginnings,"  the  "  Year  of  Popu- 
larity," the  "Year  of  Opposition"). 

Subdivide  each  of  these  into  smaller  stories 
or  incidents  (Daniel,  for  instance,  had  three 
great  tests,  each  complete  in  itself,  and  lived 
under  three  kings),  then  combine  into  a 
whole,  applying  the  principles  of  story-telling 
and  of  adaptation. 

Test  your  story  by  telling  it  to  a  child  or  a 
group  of  children.  Tell  the  same  story  not 
once  but  many  times. 

Choice.  Do  not  pad.  Avoid  diffuseness. 
Put  in  only  those  details  that  are  salient — ■ 
that  leap  out  at  you — that  are  necessary 
to  the  picture  and  the  meaning.  Any  one 
can  put  in  everything.  It  is  only  the  born 
story-teller,  or  the  one  who  will  sit  down  by 
the  side  of  a  child  and  patiently  observe  the 
points  that  the  child  sees  and  likes  to  hear, 
that  can  be  trusted  to  put  in  and  to  leave  out 
just  the  right  points. 


How  to  Learn  How.  6i 

Try  writing  out  the  story  of  Jonah,  with- 
out the  book.  Compare  your  work  with  the 
original.  How  might  you  have  been  less  dif- 
fuse ?  What  necessary  points  did  you  omit  ? 
Did  you  use  more  or  fewer  general  terms 
than  the  original  ?  Were  your  words  and  ex- 
pressions so  picturesque  as  those  in  the  text  ? 

Examples.  By  way  of  illustrating  the 
meaning  of  the  foregoing  points,  it  may  be 
interesting  to  note  the  difference  in  concrete- 
ness,  i.  e.,  in  the  picture,  to  be  found  in  the 
following  paragraphs,  all  of  which  are  in- 
tended to  mean  practically  the  same  thing. 

(^)  One  bidden  to  obey  and  refusing,  but 
afterward  obeying,  is  a  better  example  of 
obedience  than  one  who  obeys  in  word  but 
not  in  deed. 

{b')  Some  one  who  was  requested  to  do 
something  refused  in  word,  but  obeyed  in 
deed  ;  another  complied,  but  only  in  word. 
Which  was  the  better  example  of  obedience  ? 

{c)  If  some  one  in  authority  should  tell 
some  one  to  do  something  and  he  should  re- 
fuse but  afterward  comply,  and  should  tell 
another  to  do  something  and  he  should  say 
that  he  would  without  doing  so,  which  of 
these  really  would  perform  the  will  of  the 
one  who  gave  the  command  ? 


62  Picture-  Work. 

{d)  A  certain  man  had  some  children. 
One  day  he  told  one  of  them  to  go  and  do 
some  work  that  he  wanted  him  to  do.  But 
the  child  said  that  he  wouldn'  t,  etc. 

(d-)  Compare  with  these  the  same  thought 
clothed  in  the  concrete  and  picturesque  words 
of  our  Lord  himself : 

*'  But  what  think  ye  ?  A  certain  man  had 
two  sons  ;  and  he  came  to  the  first,  and  said, 
Son,  go  work  to-day  in  my  vineyard. 

*'He  answered  and  said,  I  will  not:  but 
afterwards  he  repented,  and  went. 

* '  And  he  came  to  the  second,  and  said 
likewise.  And  he  answered  and  said,  I  go, 
sir  :  and  went  not. 

' '  Whether  of  them  twain  did  the  will  of 
his  father  ?  ' ' 

It  would  be  equally  possible  to  take  the 
same  clear-cut,  dramatic  picture  and  load  it 
down — smother  it — with  words.  But  this 
kind  of  picture-work  it  is  unnecessary  to 
illustrate. 

Expression.  Read  each  of  the  parables 
of  Jesus,  picturing  in  your  mind  everything 
that  can  be  seen,  heard,  or  felt.  "  Put  your- 
self in  his  place  ' '  regarding  every  one  spoken 
of.  When  you  have  thus  pictured  the  story, 
and  while  you  are  picturing  it,  read  aloud,  or 


How  to  I. earn  How.  63 

tell  the  story.  The  expression  will  take  care 
of  itself — if  only  you  see  and  hear.  In  this 
simple  principle  is  contained  the  whole  art  of 
expression,  /.  e.,  of  giv^ing  forth  something 
which  is  within. 

Environment.  What  kind  of  country  was 
Palestine  ?  If  Palestine  were  taken  up  from 
the  shore  of  the  Mediterranean  and  planted 
on  your  state,  where  would  Dan  and  Beer- 
sheba  lie  respectively  ?  Wherein  did  its  di- 
visions differ,  in  respect  of  people,  surface, 
products,  occupations  ? 

The  four  routes  of  Christ's  principal  jour- 
neys are  given  as  follows  :  Bethlehem  to 
Jerusalem,  6  miles  north  ;  Bethlehem  to 
Egypt,  250  miles  southwest  ;  Nazareth  to 
Jericho,  60  miles  southeast:  Nazareth  to  Je- 
rusalem, 65  miles  south.  Trace  these  routes 
on  a  sand  map  and  on  the  blackboard.  De- 
scribe the  country  passed  through,  the  occu- 
pations of  the  people,  the  mode  of  travel, 
the  length  of  time  required. 

Account  for  the  roughness  of  the  road  from 
Jerusalem  to  Jericho. 

What  kind  of  place  was  Csesarea  Philippi, 
and  what  kind  of  stream  is  the  Jordan  at  that 
point  ? 

Sketching.      The  teacher  should  practice 


64  Picture-  Work. 

until  he  can  make,  with  the  flat  crayon,  some- 
thing that  looks  like  a  mountain,  a  road,  a 
tree — a  scumble  for  the  foliage  and  a  stroke 
or  two  for  the  trunk,  a  man — two  strokes 
will  do  for  him  (some  teachers  prefer  to  cut 
out  pictures  and  pin  them  on  the  board).  It 
must  be  admitted  that  this  method  of  trial 
and  error  is  dangerous.  But  there  are  self- 
taught  teachers  who  do  pretty  well. 

Map-drawing.  To  learn  to  sketch  a  map 
is  a  more  hopeful  task.  Every  one  should 
be  able  to  follow  on  pad  or  blackboard  a 
campaign,  a  flight  into  Egypt,  and  a  march 
up  into  Canaan  ;  and  to  trace  the  journeys 
of  Jesus  and  of  Paul. 

The  following  directions  will  be  found  help- 
ful in  drawing,  free-hand  and  with  only  two 
construction  lines,  the  map  of  Palestine : 

Draw  a  horizontal  line,  and  on  it  with  the 
span  of  the  hand,  or  with  any  convenient 
unit,  measure  three  units,  indicating  their  ex- 
tremities by  the  figures  i,  2,  3,  4,  from  left 
to  right.  At  the  right  extremity  of  this  line, 
which  we  designate  4,  draw  a  vertical  line 
five  units  in  length  (4-9).  From  the  upper 
extremity  of  this  line  draw  to  the  left  a  line 
parallel  to  1-4,  one  unit  in  length  (9-10). 
Join  points  i  and  10  with  an  irregular  line, 


How  to  Learn  How.  65 

thus  indicating-  the  coast.  A  perpendicular 
let  fall  from  10  to  3  would  indicate  the  course 
of  the  Jordan,  the  source  lying  nearly  oppo- 
site 8,  the  Sea  of  Galilee  opposite  7,  the 
Dead  Sea  between  4  and  5  ;  and  Judaea, 
Samaria,  Galilee,  and  Phoenicia  will  each 
occupy,  roughly  speaking,  one  and  a  half 
units.  The  principal  mountains,  cities, 
routes,  may  be  indicated  by  initials,  signs,  or 
in  any  other  appropriate  ways.  Each  unit 
being  40  miles  in  lengh,  the  dimensions  of 
Palestine  and  its  parts  may  be  derived.  This 
same  system  may,  of  course,  be  used  in 
drawing  any  map. 

Miss  Lucy  Wheelock  says  that  ' '  the  most 
satisfactory  map  is  one  which  the  teacher 
makes  herself,  drawing  the  outlines  with  a 
blue  marking  crayon  on  a  sheet  of  white 
silesia,  or  finished  cotton  cloth,  and  putting 
in  thin  strips  of  wood  or  rollers  at  top  and 
bottom,  so  that  it  will  hang  easily." 

The  sand  table,  especially  with  work  for 
younger  children,  is  indispensable.  This 
every  one  can  learn  to  make  and  manage  and 
can  fit  out  with  the  needed  materials.  Let 
no  one  shrink  from  the  simple  task  of  getting 
together  the  equipment  and  learning  to  model 
a  map  of  Palestine. 


66  Picture-  Work, 

The  following  description  of  the  way  of 
making  a  sand  map  of  Palestine  has  been 
kindly  furnished  by  Miss  Juliet  E.  Dimock  of 
Elizabeth,  N.  J.,  whose  theory  and  practice 
in  primary  classes  are  alike  admirable  : 

'  'Any  carpenter  will  make  for  you  a  board, 
four  feet  six  inches  long,  and  two  feet  six 
inches  wide,  with  a  raised  edge  of  one  and 
one  half  inches.  Paint  the  surface  a  bright 
blue,  to  represent  the  waters  of  the  Mediter- 
ranean. Procure  about  fifty  pounds  of 
molders'  sand  from  a  stove  foundry.  The 
new  sand  is  preferable  to  that  which  has  been 
used  for  casting,  owing  to  its  lighter  color. 
Study  a  good  map  of  Palestine  until  you 
have  a  clear  idea  of  the  coast-line,  the  sea- 
coast  plain,  the  mountain  region,  with  its 
principal  peaks,  the  Jordan  valley,  and  the 
eastern  table  land. ' ' 

(A  relief  map  is  desirable  as  a  guide.  The 
relative  heights  of  mountains  are  given  in 
Hurlbut's  "Bible  Geography."  A  cross- 
section  of  Palestine  showing  relief  is  given  in 
the  "Bible  Study  Union  Lessons,"  Old 
Testament  History,  Progressive  Grade,  First 
Quarter,  Appendix  pp.  (V.),  (VI.).  The 
Bible  Study  Publishing  Co.,  21  Bromfield 
Street,  Boston,  Mass.) 


How  to  Learn  How.  67 

"Cut  a  paper  pattern  of  the  rivers  and  have 
them  cut  out  of  tin  by  a  tinsmith.  Use 
mirrors  for  the  waters  of  Merom,  the  Dead 
Sea,  and  the  Sea  of  GaHlee,  and  white  cord 
for  the  roads. 

'  'When  you  are  ready  to  go  to  work,  place 
the  board  on  a  table  and  empty  upon  it  your 
box  of  sand,  which  should  be  dampened 
until  it  can  easily  be  molded  by  the  hand. 
Raise  the  head  of  the  board,  until  the 
children  can  see  your  work  ;  if  the  sand  is 
damp  enough  to  keep  its  place,  it  can  be  in- 
clined at  an  angle  of  forty-five  degrees.  At 
first  the  children  will  be  interested  in  seeing 
you  form  the  map  ;  the  coast-line,  with  its 
"camel's  hump"  for  Mt.  Carmel,  the  moun- 
tains, with  snow-capped  Hermon  towering 
above  them  all,  the  seas,  rivers,  roads,  and 
finally  the  white  paper  boats  on  the  Mediter- 
ranean. 

*  'Take  five  minutes  every  Sunday  for  a  sup- 
plemental lesson  on  the  history  of  the  land, 
beginning  with  the  first  settlement  of  the 
country  by  the  Canaanites,  the  family  of 
Noah's  grandson.  Use  the  map  also,  when- 
ever it  is  possible,  to  illustrate  the  lesson  for 
the  day  ;  either  as  a  map,  or  by  building  up 
the  sand  into  a  city,  a  garden,  a  temple,  or 


68  Picture-  Work. 

a  palace.  The  supplemental  course  might 
begin  with  the  Garden  of  Eden,  with  as 
great  a  variety  of  trees,  flowers,  and  animals, 
as  may  be  easily  obtained.  And  by  turning 
the  board  around,  the  map  of  the  ancient 
world  may  be  made,  and  the  stories  of  Noah, 
Babel,  and  Abram's  journey  from  Ur  of  the 
Chaldees.  Use  small  objects  to  make  the 
places  on  the  map,  and  replace  them  with 
initial  blocks  when  the  children  are  suffi- 
ciently familiar  with  the  story  to  tell  it  to 
you.  A  very  little  ingenuity  on  the  part  of 
the  teacher  will  suggest  the  objects  to  be 
used,  which  can  be  readily  cut  out  of  colored 
card-board. 

"After  school,  return  the  sand  to  its  box 
and  pour  at  least  a  quart  of  water  over  it.  It 
will  then  be  in  good  condition  for  next 
Sunday's  use." 

Specifics.  True  picture-work  has,  as  we 
have  seen,  a  true  bearing  upon  the  question, 
How  to  help  children  conquer  their  faults. 
"Don't,"  even  "Please  don't,"  is  ineffec- 
tual and  unpedagogical.  So  is  every  means 
that  is  direct  and  negative  instead  of  indirect 
and  constructive.  It  is  a  thousand  times 
easier  to  empty  a  tumbler  of  air  by  filling  it 
with  water  than  by  the  use  of  the  air  pump. 


How  to  Leant  How.  69 

And  so,  just  as  we  know  that  singing  has 
a  marvelous  power  to  sweeten  and  calm  the 
spirit  of  a  young  child,  so  a  story  is  often 
the  shortest  and  the  most  effective  means  to 
bring  him  to  himself  A  story  is  a  specific. 
The  right  story  will  heal  its  proper  disorder. 
There  is  danger  here,  'tis  true  ;  *'  the  intent 
to  teach,"  as  Herbart  writes,  spoils  it  ah. 
Stories  should  be  given  as  food  rather  than 
as  medicine.  There  is  all  the  greater  need, 
therefore,  for  practice. 

Find,  adapt,  make  up  stories  to  meet  the 
needs  of  a  child  who  is  idle  ;  of  one  who  is 
mean,  lacks  self-control,  is  slovenly,  careless, 
untruthful,  etc. 

Texts.  On  the  other  hand,  it  is  just  as 
necessary  that  illustrations  attach  themselves 
to  their  proper  principles,  as  that  principles 
find  the  concrete  key  that  will  serve  as  their 
open  sesame  into  the  child's  mind. 

Mr.  Barrie  tells  of  a  newspaper  writer  who 
never  conversed  five  minutes  with  a  friend 
without  getting  a  suggestion  for  a  leader  or  a 
"story."  The  teacher  ought  to  be  no  less 
fertile  in  finding  texts,  and  in  pressing  every- 
thing he  meets — whether  in  books,  in  news- 
papers, or  on  the  street — into  the  service  of 
the  Sunday-school  lesson. 


70  Picture-  Work. 

For  example,  the  street  car  on  which  you 
ride  to  school  or  to  business  in  the  morning 
suddenly  stops.  It  stands  still  three,  five, 
fifteen  minutes.  You  are  late.  Twenty 
others  are  late.  Reason,  a  careless  truck- 
driver  has  driven  an  inch  too  near  the  track. 
What  does  this  illustrate  ? 

A  pound  of  cotton,  worth  a  few  cents,  may 
be  made  into  yarn  and  become  worth  more  ; 
into  chintz  and  be  worth  still  more,  etc. 
What  is  the  truth  hidden  in  this  fact  ? 

A  thoughtful  teacher,  in  reply  to  the  ques- 
tion, "What  stories  have  you  found  especi- 
ally helpful  ? ' '  contained  in  the  blank  on 
story-telling  (Chapter  X.),  gave  the  fol- 
lowing : 

"  Cato's  words,  'Carthage  must  be  de- 
stroyed '  (the  power  of  words);  Hercules  at 
the  parting  of  the  ways  (the  necessity  of 
choice)  ;  Macbeth' s  '  I  have  lived  long 
enough'  (the  end  of  a  wasted  life);  The 
Ancient  Mariner — 'He  prayeth  best '  (the 
secret  of  prayer) ;  the  parable  of  the  wicked 
husbandmen  (irreverence)." 


VIII. 

BOOKS,       PICTURES,       AND      ILLUSTRATIVE 
MATERIAL. 

The  teacher  should  be  a  capitalist.  He 
should  not  run  dry  every  Sunday,  and  fill  in 
during  the  week  only  enough  for  the  next 
lesson  ;  as  a  schoolboy  who  fills  his  mind 
with  facts  and  empties  it  on  examination  day. 
The  true  teacher  is  independent  of  the 
*  *  Quarterly. ' '  He  uses  it  but  does  not 
lean  on  it.  For  the  facts  there  given  are,  as 
a  rule,  isolated,  and  so  half  dead  ;  the  illus- 
trations are  at  best  warmed  over.  Neither 
can  give  a  strong  head  of  steam.  There  is 
not  enough,  and  what  there  is  is  cold. 

Other  remedies  for  this  condition  are  sug- 
gested elsewhere.  Here  it  is  urged  that  the 
teacher  must  be  a  reader  of  books.  The 
following  are  given  as  types.  They  have 
been  selected  after  searching  the  lists  of  many 
publishers,  and  are  recommended  only  after 
a  personal  examination  : 

Books    Telling  the  Story  of  the  Bible. 

There  are  many  Bible  stories  for  children, 
71 


72  Picture-  Work. 

some  of  them  good,  but  most  of  them  far 
from  ideal  when  both  the  story  and  the 
pictures  are  considered.  Those  with  highly 
colored,  gaudy  pictures  should  be  shunned 
as  they  tend  to  give  low  ideals  morally  and 
spiritually  as  well  as  to  corrupt  the  child's 
artistic  taste.  To  publish  a  story  of  the 
Bible  with  illustrations  taken  only  from 
great  masters  is  a  good  work  waiting  for 
some  one  who  wishes  to  be  of  service  to  the 
world. 

"The  Story  of  the  Bible  from  Genesis  to 
Revelation,"  by  Charles  Foster.  Charles 
Foster  Publishing  Co.,  Philadelphia,  Pa. 
75  cents. 

Of  the  many  Bible  stories  published  this  is 
the  most  complete  and  the  most  popular.  In 
the  matter  of  pictures,  however,  it  is  poor. 

"Children's  Treasury  of  Bible  Stories," 
by  Mrs.  Herman  Gaskoin.  Macmillan  & 
Co.      Three  parts,  i8mo,  30  cents  each. 

The  best  Bible  story  we  have  found.  It 
is  most  suggestive  and  interesting,  showing 
how  to  picture  Bible  scenes. 

"Stories  from  the  Bible,"  Rev.  Alfred  J. 
Church.      Macmillan  &  Co.     256  pp.,  $1.25. 

Excellent  as  giving  a  condensed  account  of 
the  Bible  narrative  in  Bible  language.     The 


Books  and  IlliLstrative  Material.       73 

teacher  who  uses  these  stories  will  often  find 
it  necessary  to  supplement  them  with  suitable 
introductions  and  side-lights. 

"The  Sweet  Story  of  Old,"  by  Mrs.  Has- 
kell.    Dutton.     4to,  50  cents. 

A  small  book  of  Bible  stories  for  young 
children,  with  pictures  which  are  quite  good. 

**  First  Steps  for  Little  Feet,"  by  Charles 
Foster.  Charles  Foster  Publishing  Co.  50 
cents. 

Bible  stories  told  in  simple  language  for 
the  youngest  children.    Fair  outline  pictures. 

"The  Story  of  Jesus,"  by  Louisa  T. 
Craigin.  Illustrated  with  one  hundred  full- 
page  illustrations  from  the  designs  of  Alex- 
ander Bida,  together  with  many  other  pictures 
of  the  Holy  Land.  Fords,  Howard  &  Hul- 
bert.     $10.00. 

A  beautiful  and  sympathetic  account  of  the 
life  of  Jesus,  especially  rich  in  descriptions  of 
Palestine  and  in  other  materials  for  word- 
pictures.  The  numerous  pictures  of  land- 
scapes and  scenes  from  the  life  of  Christ  are 
helpful. 

The  same  in  paper  covers  in  15  numbers, 
50  cents  each. 

"From  Olivet  to  Patmos."  The  First 
Christian  Century  in  Picture  and  Story.     By 


74  Picture-  Work. 

Louisa  Seymour  Houghton.  American  Tract 
Society.     $1.50. 

"The  Life  of  Christ  in  Picture  and  Story/' 
by  Louisa  Seymour  Houghton.  American 
Tract  Society.     $1.25. 

The  last  two  books  contain  some  poorly 
executed  but  well-chosen  pictures  of  Bible 
lands,  showing  architecture,  costumes,  street 
scenes,  etc. 

Books  About  Palestine, 

"The  Land  and  the  Book,"  by  W.  M. 
Thomson.     Harper  &  Bros.     $8.00,  $6.00. 

Recommended  by  a  high  authority  as  the 
best  book  on  Palestine  for  a  teacher  who  can 
own  only  one. 

' '  Boy  Travelers  in  Egypt  and  the  Holy 
Land,"  by  T.  W.  Knox.  Harper  &  Bros. 
$3.00. 

' '  Sinai  and  Palestine  in  Connection  with 
their  History,"  by  Dean  Stanley.  A.  C. 
Armstrong.     $2.50, 

An  excellent  standard  work. 

"Pictured  Palestine,"  by  James  Neill. 
Anson  D.  Randolph.     $2.25. 

Shows  the  contrast  between  eastern  life 
and  our  own.  Very  good  pictures  illus- 
trating many  phases  of  oriental  life. 


Books  and  Illustrative  Material.  75 

"  In  Scripture  Lands. "   Scribner's.   $3.50. 

Beautiful  pictures. 

"Earthly  Foot-Prints  of  the  Man  of  Gali- 
lee," by  Bishop  John  H.  Vincent,  D.D., 
LL.D.,  Jas.  W.  Lee,  D.D.,  Robert  E.  M. 
Bain.  New  York  and  St.  Louis  :  N.  D. 
Thompson  Publishing  Co.     $4.75. 

Four  hundred  fine,  large  photographic 
views  and  descriptions  of  places  connected 
with  the  earthly  life  of  our  Lord  and  his 
apostles. 

Books  on  the  Use  of  Stories  and  Illustrations. 

' '  The  Use  of  Stories  in  the  Kindergarten, ' ' 
by  Anna  Buckland.      Ginn  &  Co.      15  cents. 

'  *  The  Place  of  the  Story  in  Early  Educa- 
tion," by  Sara  E.  Wiltse.  Ginn  &  Co. 
332  pp.,  50  cents. 

Two  suggestive  and  helpful  essays  that 
every  teacher  should  read. 

"Yale  Lectures  on  Preaching,"  by  Henry 
Ward  Beecher.  Fords,  Howard  &  Hulbert. 
$2.00. 

An  inspiring  book.  The  chapter  on 
"Rhetorical  Illustrations"  is  especially  ap- 
plicable, but  the  entire  work,  although  written 
for  preachers,  has  rich  stores  of  instruction 
and  guidance  for  teachers. 


76  Picture-  Work. 

"The  Art  of  Illustration,"  by  C.  H. 
Spurgeon.      Wilbur  B.  Ketchum.     $1.25. 

A  book  by  a  master  giving  the  secret  of 
his  art. 

Stories  mid   Themes. 

"Parables  from  Nature,"  by  Margaret 
Gatty.    Macmillan &  Co.    2  vols.,  i8mo,$i.50. 

A  wonderful  book,  in  which  nature  is  used 
to  typify  spiritual  truths.  It  should  be  owned 
by  every  mother  and  teacher. 

"Parables.  Laws  of  Nature  and  Life,  or 
Science  applied  to  Character, ' '  by  Louisa  Par- 
sons Hopkins.     Lee&Shepard.     15  cents. 

Brief  and  suggestive. 

' '  Stories  of  the  Saints, ' '  by  Mrs.  C.  Van  D. 
Chenoweth.    Houghton,  Mifflin  &  Co.  $1.00. 

Supplies  a  want  which  should  be  more 
"  felt "  than  it  is.  Is  it  not  as  important  that 
our  children  should  know  the  story  of  Chris- 
tian saints  and  martyrs  as  that  of  Greek  gods 
and  heroes  ? 

'  *  Kindergarten  Stories  and  Morning 
Talks,"  by  Sara  E.  Wiltse.  Ginn  &  Co. 
212  pp.,  75  cents. 

"Stories  for  Kindergartens  and  Primary 
Schools,"  by  Sara  E.  Wiltse.  Ginn  &  Co. 
50  cents. 

"A  Brave  Baby  and  Other  Stories,"   by 


Books  and  Ilhistrative  Material.        77 

Sara    E.    Wiltse.     Ginn    &    Co.     50   cents. 

These  three  books  are  storehouses  of  in- 
spiration and  models  of  story-telling. 

''Child  Stories  from  the  Masters,"  by 
Maude  Menefee.  Kindergarten  Literature 
Co.,  Chicago.     $1.00. 

An  excellent  selection  of  themes  from 
poets,  dramatists,  and  the  Bible.  The 
teacher  will  do  well  to  study  the  originals 
and  try  to  improve  upon  the  stories  given. 

"Child's  Christ-Tales,"  by  Andrea  Hofer. 
Woman's  Temple,  Chicago.     $1.00. 

Choice  illustrations  from  the  masters.  Sug- 
gestive tales  and  parables. 

"The  Kindergarten  Sunday-School,"  by 
Frederika  Beard.  Kindergarten  Publishing 
Co.,  Woman's  Temple,  Chicago. 

An  attempt  to  solve  the  infant  class  prob- 
lem. Three  series  of  lessons,  each  having 
sequence  and  unity.  Suggestive  in  its  plan, 
and  likely  to  help  teachers  to  improve  upon 
the  models  given. 

Books  to  be  Read  for  the  Sake  of  a  Better 
Under sta7iding  of  Child  Nature. 

"Study  of  Child  Nature,"  by  Elizabeth 
Harrison.  Chicago  Kindergarten  Training 
School.     $1.00. 


yS  Picture-  Work. 

''Children's  Rights,"  by  Kate  Douglas 
Wiggin.     Houghton,  Mifflin  &  Co.      $i.oo, 

"A  Boy's  Town,"  by  W.  D.  Ho  wells. 
Harper  &  Bros.,  New  York.     $1.25. 

**  Being  a  Boy,"  by  Charles  Dudley  War- 
ner.    Houghton,  Mifflin  &  Co.     $1.25. 

''The  Story  of  a  Bad  Boy,"  by  T.  B.  Al- 
drich.     Houghton,  Mifflin  &  Co.     $1.25. 

"  The  Mill  on  the  Floss,"  by  George  El- 
iot.    Harper  &  Bros.     Popular  ed.     75  cents. 

"  Cuore,  An  Italian  Schoolboy's  Journal," 
by  Edmondo  de  Amicis.  N.  Y.  Crowell. 
Illustrated  edition.     $1.50. 

Pictures  and  Books  froyn  which  Pictures  may 
be  Culled. 

"The  Life  of  Christ  as  Treated  in  Art," 
by  F.  W.  Farrar,  D.D.,  F.  R.  S.  Mac- 
millan  &  Co.     $8.00,  $5.00. 

"The  Christ  Child  in  Art,"  by  Henry 
Van  Dyke.     Harper  &  Bros.     $4.00. 

"Sacred  and  Legendary  Art,"  by  Mrs. 
Anna  Jameson.  Longmans,  Green  &  Co. 
2  vols.,  i6mo.     $2.50. 

"The  History  of  Our  Lord  as  Exempli- 
fied in  Works  of  Art,"  by  Mrs.  Anna  Jame- 
son. Illustrated.  2  vols.  Longmans,  Green 
&  Co.     $8.00. 


Books  and  Illustrative  Material.       79 

All  the  above  are  standard  works  and  are 
excellent. 

"The  Earthly  Footprints  of  Our  Risen 
Lord,"  by  Fleming  H.  Revell.    4to.    $1.50. 

A  continuous  narrative  of  the  four  gospels 
according  to  the  revised  version,  illustrated 
by  numerous  half-tone  pictures.  The  selec- 
tion is  not  so  choice  as  one  could  wish,  yet 
many  of  the  pictures  are  by  the  best  artists, 
and  present  a  consecutive  pictorial  story  of 
the  life  of  Christ. 

''The  Photographs  of  the  Holy  Land." 
Globe  Bible  Publishing  Co.,  Philadelphia. 
$3.00.  The  same  in  cheaper  style  in  eight 
portfolios  at  10  cents  apiece. 

Photographs  of  classic  and  modern  pic- 
tures of  the  child  Jesus  and  of  other  Biblical 
subjects.  Unmounted,  card  size,  2>V\  cent? 
each  ;  cabinet  size,  7^  cents  each.  A  cata-" 
logue  in  German  will  be  sent  on  application. 
R.  Tamme,  Dresden,  Germany. 

There  is  no  duty  on  pictures. 

Blue  print  copies  of  pictures  of  Biblical 
scenes  by  the  old  masters  and  by  modern 
artists.  Mr.  Alfred  A.  Hart,  221  West  109th 
Street,  New  York  City.  Card  size,  one  cent 
each. 

Clear,  durable,  excellent ;  of  a  kind  likely 


8o  Picture-  Work. 

to  develop  good  taste.  The  low  price  makes 
it  possible  to  encourage  children  to  make 
collections  of  their  own.  A  single  secular 
school  has  used  over  twelve  thousand  of  these 
pictures. 

The  Christmas  catalogues  of  publishers 
often  contain  serviceable  pictures. 

The  standard  histories  of  art  are  full  of 
illustrative  material.  The  teacher  should  be 
ever  on  the  alert. 

Objective  Helps  ;  Blackboard  Sketches. 

Cards  for  children  to  prick  and  sew. 
Bible  Study  Publishing  Co.,  21  Bromfield 
Street,  Boston,  Mass. 

Scroll  of  history.  See  "The  Modern 
Sunday  School,"  p.  297.  John  H.  Vin- 
cent. 

Sunday-school  Museum.  Read  descrip- 
tion of  one  at  Akron,  in  "  The  Modern 
Sunday  School,"  p.  301. 

Illustrative  Blackboard  Sketching,  by  W. 
Bertha  Hintz.  E.  L.  Kellogg  &  Co.  53  pp. 
30  cents. 

A  helpful  guide  designed  for  those  entirely 
ignorant  of  the  art  of  drawing,  who  never- 
theless like  to  work  out  their  own  way  of 


Books   aivd   Illustrative  Material.      8i 

putting  a  lesson,  for  the  eye  as  well  as  for 
the  ear,  in  preference  to  ready-made  black- 
board exercises  and  "  pictured  truth  "  at 
second  hand. 


rx. 

FALSE     PICTURE-WORK. 

A  BOOK  on  helps,  to  be  truly  helpful,  must 
deal  with  negative  as  well  as  with  positive 
matters — those  things  which  we  ought  to 
leave  undone  as  well  as  those  we  ought  to 
do.  Any  treatment  of  true  picture-work  is 
lacking  in  completeness,  not  to  say  in  candor, 
which  does  not  say  a  word  about  false  picture- 
work. 

If  there  were  only  some  way  of  crawling 
into  the  inside  of  the  children's  brains,  and 
marking  the  effect  of  the  alliterations,  juxta- 
positions, and  symbolisms  of  what  goes  by 
the  name  of  picture-work  !  Can't  we  devise 
a  meter  for  estimating  the  precise  emotional 
and  spiritual  value  of  a  board  filled  with 
marks  in  various  colors  in  the  form  of 
anchors,  hearts,  keys,  crosses,  not  to  men- 
tion other  less  sacred  things  ? 

I  once  saw  a  ' '  chalk  talk ' '  given  to  two 
hundred  Sunday-school  children.  Dramatis 
personcB :  three  parrots  ;  one  unrecognizable, 
82 


False  Picture-  Work.  83 

it  was  so  badly  drawn  ;  a  second,  indifferent  ; 
the  third,  capital,  a  speaking  likeness.  The 
last  was  perched  on  S.  T.  Moral  :  "Honesty 
is  the  best  policy."  The  children  were  as 
delighted  as  if  the  text  had  been  taken  from 
the  Bible  and  as  interested  in  the  display 
as  if  it  had  possessed  the  slightest  value. 

"But,"  it  is  urged,  "the  children  are 
always  interested  in  such  things."  Yes,  and 
they  would  be  more  interested  still  if  you 
showed  them  a  monkey  or  displayed  red, 
green,  and  blue  lights.  The  law  of  interest 
tells  us  what  shall  7iot  be  placed  before  the 
children — "  Nothing  that  is  not  interesting" 
— but  as  a  guide  to  what  we  shall  give  them 
it  tells  but  half  the  story.  The  other  half  is, 
'^Not  every thiyig  that  is  iiiteresting ,  and  not 
anything  just  because  it  is  inter esti7ig.'' 

Let  this  caution  not  be  misunderstood. 
The  children  must  use  their  eyes.  To  ex- 
pect children  to  follow  your  stories  by  ear, 
and  make  up  their  mind-pictures  out  of 
whole  cloth  or  from  the  few  objects  and 
pictures  that  can  be  shown  them,  or  to  re- 
member texts  and  lesson  points  out  of  hand, 
is  to  suppose  them  ready  to  graduate  into 
the  senior  department.  Let  us  have  more 
blackboards.     An  individual  board  for  every 


84  Picture-  Work, 

pupil,  if  possible,  and  the  more  use — ^wise 
use — of  blackboards  the  better.  But  many 
"  blackboardists  "  have  yet  to  learn  that  it  is 
possible  to  be  apt  without  being  alliterative, 
that  one  may  be  extravagant  without  being 
effective,  sensational  without  being  spiritual. 
In  short,  they  seem  not  to  understand  that 
common  sense  applies  even  to  blackboard 
work. 

What  are  the  points  in  good  blackboard 
work  ?  To  be  quite  dogmatic,  for  the  sake 
of  brevity,  good  blackboard  work  is  : 

1.  Simple.  "  Blackboard  ingenuities,  dis- 
solving from  acrostic  into  enigma,  and  from 
enigma  into  rhyme  are  not  necessary"  and 
they  are  harmful  besides.  They  distract, 
distort,  make  dizzy.  The  best  blackboard 
work  has  the  fewest  lines,  the  most  unity  in 
its  variety,  the  least  approach  to  anything 
like  a  maze. 

2.  Clear.  The  best  blackboard  work  is  that 
which  is  easiest  to  follow,  hardest  to  forget. 

3.  Varied.  Our  stock  symbols  are  worked 
to  death.  Is  it  right  to  use  the  cross  as 
commonly  as  you  would  a  letter  of  the  alpha- 
bet ?  Find  something  new  or  give  the  black- 
board a  vacation.  It  is  not  necessary  that 
there   be   a    quarter    hour    on   every   day's 


False  Picture-  Work.  85 

program  for  blackboard  work.  Who  has 
not  spent  a  **bad  quarter  of  an  hour"  when 
the  * '  exercise ' '  was  perfunctory  ? 

4.  Descriptive.  All  maps  and  plans, 
sketches  of  roads  and  rooms,  of  mountains 
and  rivers,  are  good,  because  they  help  us  to 
form  for  ourselves  the  picture  which  we  must 
see  in  order  to  grasp  the  meaning  of  the 
story.  For  example,  we  may  illustrate  the 
Mount  of  Transfiguration  ;  first  with  four 
figures,  then  six,  then  four ;  the  winding 
road  to  Emmaus,  two  figures — straight  lines, 
merely — and  a  little  farther  on,  a  third  ;  the 
upper  room,  its  occupants  represented  by 
marks  or  initial  letters.  Anything  is  helpful 
that  gives  a  notion  of  position,  number, 
form,  contrast,  sequence,  change. 

5.  Free,  living,  personal.  The  best  black- 
board work  is  that  which  is  freest.  Children 
are  impressionists.  For  them  the  broad  side 
of  the  crayon  is  better  than  the  point  ;  two 
strokes  better  than  twenty. 

The  best  blackboard  work  is  that  which 
grows  before  the  children's  eyes,  which  is 
made,  not  unveiled.  Two  minutes  of  rough 
sketching  in  the  lesson  hour  is  better  than 
two  hours  of  patient  putting  in  of  finishing 
touches  beforehand. 


86  Picture-  Work, 

The  best  blackboard  work  is  that  which  is 
original,  personal.  That  which  is  given  in 
the  "lesson  helps"  is  just  what  you  should 
not  use.  It  is  not  yours.  If  it  does  not 
help  you  to  find  your  own  way,  it  is  useless 
— and  worse  than  useless,  because  it  tempts 
you  to  borrow  without  inspiring  you  to 
create. 

6.  In  fine,  the  mission  of  the  blackboard, 
as  of  all  picture-work,  is  to  helo  us  to  see 
the  truth  in  the  world  or  the  truth  in  our  own 
selves  by  showing  us  a  truth  that  is  easier  to 
see  or  that  is  nearer  at  hand  than  that  which 
we  would  learn. 

Like  all  picture-work,  it  fulfills  its  mission 
when  it  serves  as  a  scaffolding,  when  it  is 
kept  subordinate.  It  fails  when  it  obscures 
the  truth,  not  helps  to  build  it.  False  pic- 
ture-work is  anything  that  stands  in  the  way 
of  our  seeing  truth  ;  as- when  we  cannot  see 
the  woods  for  the  trees — cannot  see  the  Sun- 
day-school lesson  for  the  bizarre  exhibitions 
on  the  blackboard. 


A   COOPERATIVE   STUDY. 

In  order  to  find  out  what  Sunday-school 
teachers  are  doing  in  the  matter  of  stories, 
illustrations,  and  picture-work  generally,  the 
writer  prepared  and  distributed  to  a  thousand 
teachers  the  following  blank  : 

One  response  NO  Wis  worth  twenty  a  month  hence, 
STORY-TELLING. 

To  Sunday-school  Teachers: 

For  the  purpose  of  devising  means  for  the  better 
preparation  of  Sunday-school  teachers,  the  Presi- 
dent of  the  Teachers  College,  New  York,  requests 
Ihe  teachers  in  your  Sunday-school  to  answer  the 
olio  wing  questions. 

To  save  time  and  trouble  use  both  sides  of  this 
sheet. 

Whenever  possible  answer  by  crossing  out  the 
term  that  does  not  apply. 

In  every  case  where  the  answer  is  based  on  ex- 
perience with  children,  state  the  age  of  the  chil- 
dren. 

Please  do  not  hesitate  to  return  this  blank,  even 
if  you  have  answered  but  a  few  questions. 
87 


88  Picture-  Work, 

Sources. — To  illustrate  the  lesson  do  you  use 
Bible  stories,  stories  from  good  literature,  or  stories 
invented  by  yourself? 

Subject. — Do  you  find  your  children  more  inter- 
ested in  stories  of  people  or  of  nature  ? 

Kind. — Which  of  the  stories  have  you  found 
more  effective,  modern  or  classic  ?  Stories  told  or 
read  ?  True  or  fictitious  ?  Those  based  on  poetry 
or  prose  ?  Stories  in  which  the  moral  is  set  forth 
or  hidden? 

Experie7ice. — What  stories  are  you  going  to  use 
in  the  Sunday-school  lesson  for  next  Sunday  ? 

Precept. — If  you  do  not  use  stories,  what  other 
means  do  you  employ  to  enforce  religious  and 
moral  lessons?  Do  you  "moralize,"  and  if  so, 
with  what  obvious  result  ? 

Envirojtment. — ^What  means  do  you  use  of  mak- 
ing the  dress,  customs,  etc.,  of  Bible  people  seem 
real  to  children  ? 

Picture-work. — Do  you  use  blackboard  illustra- 
tions ?    What  other  objective  helps  ? 

Examples. — What  stories  have  you  found  es- 
pecially helpful  ? 

Purpose. — What  is  your  purpose  in  using  stories 
in  the  Sunday-school  ? 

Principles.  —  Do  you  succeed  in  having  such 
unity  in  the  lesson  that  the  stories  all  contribute  to 
one  main  thought  ?  Mention  five  requisites  for  a 
good  story-teller. 

Mention  five  qualities  in  a  good  story. 

To  these  questions  fifty-eight  replies  were 
received.  Very  few,  however,  gave  the 
ages  of  the  children,  and  the  smallness  of  the 


A  Cooperative  Study,  89 

number  of  replies — which  after  all  is  by  no 
means  discouraging — tends  to  vitiate  the  data 
as  bases  for  generalization. 

Space  forbids  giving  more  than  a  single 
group  of  typical  answers.  Some  of  the  most 
helpful  of  the  suggestions  have  been  embodied 
in  the  foregoing.  Further  replies  from 
thoughtful  teachers  will  be  welcome. 

Questio7i — Mention  five  requisites  for  a  good 
story-teller. 

Answers  : 

Sympathetic  voice,  manner,  and  face. 

More  knowledge  of  the  subject  than  one  wants 
to  use. 

The  teacher  must  be  interested,  bright,  imagina- 
tive, clear  in  thought  and  expression. 

Clear  apprehension  of  the  point  to  be  made, 
clear  knowledge  of  the  subject,  understanding  of 
the  peculiarities  of  his  hearers,  tact  in  making 
application,  and  dramatic  power. 

Power  in  word-painting — with  a  sense  of  per- 
spective. 

Unconsciousness  of  self 

A  gift  for  mimicry. 

Graphic  description. 

Sympathy  with  children. 

Power  to  hold  attention  and  keep  tci  the  main 
thought. 

Animation,  personal  magnetism,  onginalilyi 
wit. 

Conciseness,  force. 

Pleasant  manner. 


go  Picture-  Work. 

Ability  to  repeat  a  story  without  hesitation. 

Power  to  put  one's  self  into  the  time,  circum- 
stances, etc.,  of  the  story. 

Love  of  story-telling. 

Quiet  manners. 

Gestures,  good  voice. 

Small  [easy?]  words. 

Ability  to  make  the  children  help  tell  the  story, 
by  making  them  gesture,  point,  express  sorrow,  sur- 
prise, etc.,  and  answer  questions. 

A  good  story-teller  asks  intensely  interesting 
questions  at  exactly  the  right  point. 

A  passage  from  Herbart  forms  a  fitting 
close  to  this  study  : 

"The  intent  to  teach  spoils  children's  books  at 
once  ;  it  is  forgotten  that  every  one,  the  child  in- 
cluded, selects  what  suits  him  from  what  he  reads, 
and  judges  the  writing  as  well  as  the  writer  after 
his  own  fashion.  Show  the  bad  to  children  plainly, 
but  not  as  an  object  of  desire,  and  they  will 
recognize  that  it  is  bad.  Interrupt  a  narrative 
with  moral  precepts,  and  they  will  find  you  a 
wearisc  ne  narrator.  Relate  only  what  is  good, 
and  they  will  feel  it  monotonous,  and  the  mere 
charm  of  variety  will  make  the  bad  welcome. 
Remember  your  own  feelings  on  seeing  a  purely 
moral  play.  But  give  to  them  an  interesting 
story,  rich  in  incidents,  relationships,  characters, 
strictly  in  accordance  with  psychological  truth, 
and  not  beyond  the  feelings  and  ideas  of  children ; 
make  no  effort  to  depict  the  worst  or  the  best, 
only  let  a  faint,  half-conscious  moral  tact  secure 


A  Cooperative  Study.  91 

that  the  interest  of  the  action  tends  away  from  the 
bad  toward  the  good,  the  just,  the  right;  then 
you  will  see  how  the  child's  attention  is  fixed  upon 
it,  how  it  seeks  to  discover  the  truth  and  think 
over  all  sides  of  the  matter,  how  the  many-sided 
material  calls  forth  a  many-sided  judgment,  how 
the  charm  of  change  ends  in  preference  for  the 
best,  so  that  the  boy  who  perhaps  feels  himself  a 
step  or  two  higher  in  moral  judgment  than  the 
hero  or  the  author,  will  cling  to  his  view  with 
inner  self-approbation,  and  so  guard  himself  from 
a  coarseness  he  already  feels  beneath  him.  The 
story  must  have  one  more  characteristic,  if  its 
effect  is  to  be  lasting  and  emphatic  ;  it  must  carry 
on  its  face  the  strongest  and  clearest  stamp  of 
human  greatness.  For  a  boy  distinguishes  the 
common  and  ordinary  from  the  praiseworthy  as 
well  as  we ;  he  even  has  this  distinction  more  at 
heart  than  we  have,  for  he  does  not  like  to  feel 
himself  small,  he  wishes  to  be  a  man.  The  whole 
look  of  a  well-trained  boy  is  directed  above  him- 
self, and  when  eight  years  old  his  entire  line  of 
vision  extends  beyond  all  histories  of  children. 
Present  to  the  boy  therefore  such  men  as  he  him- 
self would  like  to  be." 


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attention  of  all  young  res.dexs.^'— The  Herald  aiid  I^resbyier. 

The  Fascinated  Child      By  basil  mathews,  m.  a. 

The  Quest  for  the  Child  Spirit  and  Talks  with   Boys 

and  Girls,  net  $1.00. 
"It  is  ess'  ntially  a  book  for  parents,  teachers  and  pastors,  who  will 
find  the  talks  an  1  stones  which  it  contains  both  usable  and  sugges- 
tive."—5a//'2.y^  Teacher. 

In  Time  with  the  Stars  By  thomas  k.  beecher,  d.d. 

Stories  for  Children.      Illustrated,   l2mo,  cloth,  net  75c. 

"There  is  not  a  dull  paragraph  in  the  vohinie,  wh'ie  each  story 
carries  a  sound  lesson.  It  is  a  good  addition  to  the  library  of  chil- 
dren's Classics."— 7y;r  Outlook. 

THE  EDWARD  LEIGH  PELL  BIBLE  STORIES 

For  Young  Folks  ayid  Children 

Illustrated,  12mo,  cloth,  each,  net  35c. 
"Dr.  Fell  shows  rare  tact  and  grace  in  telling  Bible  stories.  We 
know  of  no  more  valuable  stories  of  the  kind  for  children  in  primary 
and  intermediate  ages.  They  are  attractively  bound,  with  pictures 
in  colors  outside  and  inside.  They  win  the  children  and  instruct 
them  at  the  same  time."— i^a/Z/V^f  World. 

The  Story  of  Jesus  for  Little  People 

The  Story  of  Joseph  The  Dreamer 

The  Story  of  David  The  Idol  of  the  People 


Princeton  Theological  Seminary-Speer  Library 


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034  5249 


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